


The Patchwork Boy

by PAPERSK1N



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst, Business, DON'T BE DETERRED/EXCITED THERE ARE NO ROBOTS, Drama, Drug Use, Drug problems, Executive!Ryan, M/M, Mavin, Mr Robot AU, Mystery, New York City, No Character Death, Raywood, Recreational Drug Use, THIS ISN'T ABOUT ROBOTS, but it's not all angst, but only sort of, but there is a tiny little baby overdose, like similar themes but very different story so don't worry if you've never seen mr robot, raychael ultimate brotp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:51:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6169861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PAPERSK1N/pseuds/PAPERSK1N
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray works nine-to-five in a four-by-four cubicle as a techie for Achievement Hunter, a cyber security network responsible for the data protection of Rooster Teeth- one of the biggest multi-media corps the world has ever seen. He lives a fairly simple life- a carefully planned cycle of work, illegal hacking and heavy recreational drug use.</p><p>But there's something itching in the back of his head. Certain aspects of his life that don't make sense, things said in whispers and shadows and the way his closest friends watch him like he's a piece of glass, balanced on the edge of a cliff. They say they miss him- <em>but he hasn't gone anywhere.</em></p><p>Ray bumps into Ryan accidentally one night on the subway. Things only get more complicated from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my sort-of-but-not-really Mr Robot AU! If you haven't watched Mr Robot then don't worry, it will not affect the way you read this in any way as the plot line is completely different. However- it's an amazon prime exclusive that's really worth watching if you have prime or a free trial (or just torrent lol). 
> 
> Please let me know what you think of this first part in the comments :)

_ Chapter One _

 

 

The facts are these.

You work nine to five in a 4x4 cubicle on the thirteenth floor of a moderately unremarkable skyscraper on the New York City skyline. Every day from Monday through Friday you hunch in your cubicle for seven and a half hours typing and coding and layering data encryption for Achievement Hunter, a cyber-security network you are employed by under the guidance of your less-than-corporate conscientious manager named Jack Pattillo.

You work for Jack Pattillo and Jack Pattillo works for Geoff Ramsey, a tattooed executive with a refined taste for expensive socks and hard liquor. Geoff Ramsey works for Roosterteeth, a multi-million multi-media conglomerate run by the illusive Matt Hullum, CEO. Matt Hullum works directly under and alongside the founder of the company himself, a multi-billion making messiah of the media and marketing world, Michael “Burnie” Burns.

Who Burns works for, you don’t even know.

After five o’clock you are officially off the clock, and when you’re not playing video games with Michael (your best friend) or smoking dope with Gavin (his best friend) or doing both, you are completely and utterly alone.

Your apartment costs you twelve-hundred and fifty dollars a month. Considering that it is just on the edge of New York City, albeit in a less than favourable neighbourhood, you’re getting a pretty good deal. Your next door neighbour, an overweight thirty-year-old hot dog vender named Clarke pays nearly double what you do. The reasons for this are a little sketchy, but you faintly remember the landlord rubbing up past your ass the day he ‘helped’ you move in.

Fate works in mysterious ways, you suppose.

By day you are a humble worker, relentlessly typing the same two-bit simpleton code you’ve been able to craft since you were thirteen and hacking into Sega Genesis forums whilst pretending to listen to the constant spiel of mindless drivel your co-workers spout constantly above your head.

By the night time, you are somebody different.

 _Brownman_ is ironic because for a Puerto Rican guy, you’re pretty pale and pasty from years of sitting inside and staring at your computer monitor rather than playing outside on the streets with the rest of the ‘normal’ kids. However, the alias has carried you for the best part of a decade on the forums of networks in the hidden net and the online black market. Online, a username is an important device because it’s all the customers have to find you by. A username can make or break your success in a community of liars and concealers who want nothing more than to track your tag and uncover your true identity.

Luckily for you, _Brownman_ has remained anonymous and you are the biggest and the baddest of the liars and the concealers.

Hacking is something that comes naturally to you. You’ve been hacking ever since you were twelve years old and your father brought home your first personal computer. It’s surprisingly easier than some people might think and a thousand times harder than other people assume. You can’t count the amount of times you have rolled your eyes watching the movie _Hackers_. Flu shot, Iain Softley? Really?

Under your alias of _Brownman_ , you hack what people pay you to hack. Email accounts and _Facebook_ profiles and pages of encrypted code from a thousand different online vaults protected by the biggest and the best businesses and corporations. They’re good at what they do, but compared to you- they’re morons. You’ve done it all- from Ashley Madison leaks to nuclear missile codes (harmless, mostly) to usernames and passwords of over a thousand club penguin accounts (your strangest request to date)

Somehow, and at great confusion to others, you do this all alone.

For _Brownman_ there is no _Lizard_ _Squad_ or online hacker crew with code-words through emails. There is no taunting twitter account or leaked online videos of yourself dressed in a plastic mask threatening the business moguls and broadcast owners of America. Online you are as invisible as you want to be. Other people- the ‘normal people’ want nothing more than to be seen- a thousand _Instagram_ followers and a million on _twitter_. A hundred likes per photo and fifty comments per _Facebook_ post. you use this to your advantage- you hardly have to hack when people offer you the information you require up on a silver platter simply by accepting a friend request. You can figure out a lot about someone based on their Facebook page. Once you crack their passwords- you can bring their whole life down to dust.

After a night of hacking you can sometimes be found doing a line or three of crushed morphine tablets courtesy of your dealer, Michael Jones, the aforementioned best friend. Michael sells you the Morphine because he’s worried and wants to control your usage after last time. What ‘last time’ is, you’re not exactly sure because Michael never talks much about it and Gavin clams up every time you ask.

Michael deals you the morphine and Gavin sells you the subuxone that his contact steals from pharmaceutical delivery vans that you then take once a week or so to fight the chances of your habit becoming an addiction and to avoid the beginnings of withdrawal. It does what it’s supposed to do, tricks you into thinking you aren’t an addict- keeps Michael happy… but it doesn’t make you _feel_ any better. Nothing does. The only reason you snort the morphine in the first place is so you can stave off the loneliness that wrenches painfully from your gut at night between the hours of one and five.

Not becoming a junkie takes hard discipline. You limit yourself to three nights a week for Morphine, and get by smoking dope for the remaining four. Dope nights are usually the hardest ones. A line or two can usually send you right to sleep after a brief comedown but the dope, surprisingly, keeps you awake and alert. Whether it’s reacting with the psych meds you’re supposed to take or reacting with the other psych meds that you’re not, you’re not even sure.

All you know is that dope nights are often the nights you end up crying on the floor at the foot of your bed, or wedged into the space between your dresser and your computer desk. Your chest aches and your arms long to reach out and hold somebody who isn’t there and you don’t understand why. You think Michael knows who, but he never says anything. Even when he does, you never really listen.

Eventually, the warm ticking of your hard drive can lull you into a state of unconsciousness that other people may refer to as ‘sleep’. Sleep is too peaceful a term to describe what you do between the hours of getting high and going to work.

The facts are these and these are the facts. The facts are simple, to some extent.

Where it gets complicated, is that you are I and I am you.

I am Ray Narvaez Jr, cyber security worker by day, drug riddled online hacker by night. You are me- or at least I hope you are. You are the little voice in the back of my head. Some nights, you tell me to stop and others you tell me to carry on.

You’re a bit of an asshole, to be quite honest.

Tonight is the night I am supposed to be attending Gavin’s birthday party. Whether you could call a bunch of co-workers (including both our bosses) drinking together loudly and publicly a ‘party’ is entirely up to you. To a person with crippling social anxiety, generally bad people skills and a distaste for alcohol like me, it is _not_ a party. It is my literal definition of Hell on Earth.

When I feel particularly anxious, especially on nights like these where I am obligated to be in situations I cannot control nor contain, I pull on my purple hoodie and a beanie and head out of my apartment into the night- where I ride the subway.

It’s cheaper than drugs and easier than listening to Michael and Gavin’s sexual tension converted into bickering. Sometimes I get off after a few stops and walk home, other nights I ride the train carriage all the way to the end of the line and back again. Recently it’s been the latter. I don’t know what it is that I am trying to avoid aside from the ‘party’ in the bar three blocks from the office, but every time I try to think of it my chest aches again and a small pain throbs in the back of my head.

I think Michael knows because when he asks me about the bags under my eyes and the paleness of my skin and when I say that nothing is wrong, the look in his eyes speaks a thousand words. He’s worried about me, I know that. He can’t ever hold eye contact with me for more than few seconds. It’s gotten worse in the last few weeks, building up slowly to something that I don’t think I want to know about. Sometimes it’s easier not to know.

When I open my eyes, I am in the centre of New York City, lighting up a cigarette as I climb the steps out of the subway. I must’ve fallen asleep again. I have a worrying habit of falling asleep and waking up somewhere I didn’t originally start, already half way through the action of a conscious person. Gavin bugs me that I should tell my therapist about it, but I’m already prescribed three pills a day and they don’t really settle well with the morphine, so I’d rather lay off for now.

A man walks into me, startling me from my thoughts and I stumble, but don’t bother looking back.

“Sorry.” I hear him say from behind me. “I should’ve been looking where I was going.”

Only then do I decide to look back at this man. Clearly he isn’t a New Yorker, because New Yorkers never admit fault and they certainly never apologise.

“Yeah.” I say. I am a New Yorker. I never admit fault and I _never_ apologise. “You should’ve been.”

The man quirks his eyebrow at me curiously. Suddenly, I feel spotlighted in the darkness of the night time and pull my hood up protectively over the beanie that already covers my head. He hesitates before speaking but eventually, his lips curl into a small smile.

“I know you.”

I shake my head. I certainly do not know this man- this man who wears a navy suit and carries a briefcase at half past midnight through New York City.

“No. You don’t.”

There is a long and somewhat awkward pause as the man’s gaze bears into me, making me feel oddly nauseous and dizzy, making my toes curl in my sneakers and my stomach unsettle. Like being on a rollercoaster whilst simultaneously standing in the middle of the street staring into the familiar eyes of a complete stranger.

“Achievement Hunter?” he asks eventually. My natural responses of fight or flight start to load, but crash before they even reach a pathetic fifty percent. With my brain unable to process either, my only instinct is to freeze completely.

“You’re uh… the little tech boy that Ramsey’s been gloating about for months. I’m Ryan Haywood, I work for Rooster Teeth.”

“Can’t place you.” I bite the inside of my cheek as the built up ash from my neglected cigarette crumbles and falls onto the damp pavement.

“We only met the once.” Ryan Haywood tells me, outstretched hand still hovering between us. I look between Ryan Haywood’s large hand and his tear-drop blue eyes anxiously. I don’t do bodily contact with most people, let alone strangers who stop me in the street past midnight and claim to know who I am, but something compels me to reach out and take his hand so I do.

“Ray Narvaez Jr.” You say. You must say it, because I would never offer up something as personal as my name to a stranger who I already distrust. I don’t even have a LinkedIn profile.

“I know your name, Ray.” Haywood smiles. His smile is both foreign and familiar to me and I can’t quite place why. “You sure you don’t remember me?”

Something bugs me about Ryan Haywood. Something that has been bugging me from the moment I laid eyes on him. It pours from his perfect pink lips and drips from the desolate blue of his eyes and crawls right up into my ear, making my shoulder twitch involuntarily.

“No.” I say. “Sorry.”

“I should go.” Haywood checks his expensive watch. Only then do I realise that we are still holding hands and I snatch mine away as if his is made of molten steel. He looks between my hand and me and his skin flushes slightly as I shift from foot to foot and hold my rejected cigarette back up to my lips.

He swallows thickly. “I’m in for a meeting with Ramsey and Pattillo tomorrow, so maybe I’ll see you there?”

“Sure.” You nod. “I’ll definitely be looking out for you.”

I know it’s you, because I would never be so self-assured. And, Ryan Haywood must know me, because the amused smirk following this statement holds nothing but surprise. He never expected me to say it either, but it’s already gone- words carelessly allowed to spring from my mouth and into Ryan Haywood’s memory, and now I can never take them back.

Haywood gives me one last smile before lighting up a cigarette of his own and heading down the concrete steps behind me in the subway. You almost call after him and tease that you can’t smoke down there and he laughs musically in response and tells you that you always tell him that.

You almost do it, right? You’d never _actually_ do it.

_Would I?_

Gavin once told me that humans are capable of more than you can imagine in an unconscious state. Holding conversation, having sex, murdering family members and more. I wouldn’t _believe_ some of the stories that he has read, apparently.

I pull my hoodie tightly around my body as the rain begins to fall and without looking back, I sprint all the way home.

 

* * *

 

Logically, the first thing I do when I get home is sit down on my computer and attempt to hack the illustrious Ryan Haywood. It’s a natural response I have to meeting someone new, not that I have to make excuses to you. I know that ‘ _normal’_ people Facebook stalk and follow the handsome guy they bumped into on Instagram- I do sort of the same thing, except for the miniscule added detail that I infiltrate every aspect of their online life, grab their passwords, hack their email accounts and instant messaging profiles. I gauge exactly what kind of person they are- do they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend? Are they married? Divorced? Do they cheat? Buy drugs? Sell drugs?

(It’s how I’ve met two of the last people I bought coke from behind Michael’s back)

You can find a lot out about a person with a quick scan through their social media accounts, but Ryan-fucking-Haywood may as well be _me_ because online-  he doesn’t fucking exist. He isn’t on Facebook and he doesn’t have an Instagram profile- not even an inactive one made in 2012 to fit in. He isn’t on twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Spotify… as far as I can tell, the dude doesn’t even have an ITunes account.

He is a total cyber ghost, a flaw in the seemingly perfect system, just like I am.

If he has an email it’s locked in the Rooster Teeth servers, and the only trace of him I can find online is his name mentioned in a Huffington Post article from 2013 when he was promoted by Rooster Teeth to Chief of Technological Communications.

Ryan’s the tech-guy to end all other tech-guy’s.

Eventually, I give up and shut my computer off. I shower in lukewarm water and stumble naked into bed. The moment my head hits the pillow, someone knocks at my door. I yell for Dalia, my across-the-hall neighbour and occasional bed warmer to fuck off, but somehow she ends up just as naked as I am and definitely in my bed anyway. I roll to the very edge after we’re done and sleep soundly for the rest of the night. Dalia is gone when I wake up in the morning.

 

* * *

 

“Dude, you look rough.”

I glance up at Michael who stands leant against my cubicle, hands in the pockets of neatly pressed dark brown trousers. I squint at him, because I’m almost certain Gavin has the same ones. For best friends, they sometimes take things a little past cute.

“I’m just tired.”

“You not sleeping again?” Michael asks concernedly. I groan internally and will for something to draw him away from the conversation I don’t intend on participating in. “Because, if you’re not, speak to Dr Mill-”

“Just a rough night.” I shake my head. If there’s anything I’m discussing with Dr Miller, it’s certainly not going to be the foggy events of last night. The memories blend together in a swarm, from a man with blue eyes by the subway to Dalia sweaty and pliant on my sheets. Ryan Haywood stands out sharply, like a monitor with all the wrong visual settings, until his face blurs again and he and Dalia become one. Which one of them _did_ I sleep with last night? Dalia would be a plausible explanation, but Ryan’s exciting, and I’ve always had a thing for blue eyes. Could it be so far-fetched that I’d picked him up at the subway entrance and taken him home?

Ryan Haywood is an executive for the company that owns my job. Ryan Haywood would probably not have sex with the grubby looking drugged-up techie he bumped into on the subway steps.

“Ray?”

I look up at Michael again, figuring that I must have zoned out. It’s easy to skim over things that don’t make sense with Michael- he’s so desperate for my faith and trust that he’ll go along with just about anything I say or do. I can zone out of minutes at a time, but Michael will follow my lead and act as if seconds have passed.

“Just a rough night.” I repeat myself, just so he doesn’t think I’ve completely lost it. “That’s all.”

“Alright.” Michael accepts my obvious lie with a stressed sigh, and his knuckles whiten from their bruising grip on the top of my short cubicle. Michael isn’t a mind reader, but I get the sense that he knows all I’m thinking is _fucking ask the question you came here to ask_ , so chews on his lip for a few seconds and avoids my eyes before asking, “Hey, uh, so you weren’t at Gavin’s party last night-”

“Something came up.” I don’t look away from my computer screen. Excuses rush from my mouth like water through a busted dam. “I couldn’t make it. I was busy.”

“Ray…” Michael rubs his hands through his hair, frustration lingering in the short sharp tones of my name from his mouth. “Did you even try?”

The honest answer is yes- before my subway adventure and unexpected meeting with a business mogul who I may-or-may-not have had sex with instead of my junkie neighbour, I did stop by the bar. However, I never made it past the glass door. Michael would likely never believe this story, so what’s the point in making him distrust me any more than he already does?

“I was busy.” I repeat. Michael looks to the floor.

“We miss you Ray. All of us do.” He says, before turning and walking back towards his desk. I don’t know who ‘us’ are, because aside from Gavin and Michael, I don’t exactly have many friends. Whatever he’s trying to tell me, I’ll probably never find out. Michael will stop being cryptic the day he pulls his head out of his ass and asks Gavin on a date.

Three o’clock rolls around and something pulls my attention to the end of the corridor where the chrome plated lift sits. The ding should be distant and unnoticeable but it rings my eardrums and vibrates my brain as the doors slide open.

Suits.

Rooster Teeth execs all start to look the same after you’ve worked at the company for a while. I recognise the big faces- Mr Matt Hullum makes me wonder what spectacular occasion brought him up from Austin to our humble abode in the city, and then I recognise Joel Heyman beside him, one of the less uptight company founders who they cart out when Sorola and Burns are busy. My brain can’t remember if I’ve slept with him or not, but for some reason his eyes dart in the opposite direction when they catch mine, and I feel like I know what his hands feel like on my waist.

I recognise Brandon Farmahini, the executive assistant and Barbara Dunkleman, the social media consultant. Behind them all, I recognise Ryan Haywood. The Chief Executive of Technological Communications.

Ryan’s not just the tech-guy to end all tech-guy’s. He’s the _God_ of the tech-guys, preened and pampered with the perfect amount of portentousness to make mere desk employees like me shiver.

He catches eyes with me immediately and smiles discreetly as they walk over in an organised shuffle, clearly not a part of the mumbled conversation taking place between the rest of the cattle. He doesn’t stop walking, but he’s clearly seen me and I’ve clearly seen him.

I don’t smile back. I can’t say the same for you.

 

* * *

 

The meeting ends, but I pretend not to notice. I excuse myself from my desk and take a short break in the empty staff lounge, standing stiffly by the watercooler as the news plays on the flat screen TV. Money, killing, war, tragedy. Same shit different day, Michael would say.

I rarely pay attention to the news, but when Ryan Haywood steps into the staff longue suddenly it becomes the most interesting thing in the room. Ryan Haywood pours himself a plastic cup of water and swallows the entire thing in one sip, and my tongue peeks out from between my lips and wets them on its own accord.

“Did you hear about PS4 taking over the Xbox One in sales?” he asks out of nowhere. At first I frown, before my eyes focus on the TV again. The newscaster talks with stock photos of the two consoles beside her. Despite not tearing my eyes away from the screen in fear of them being drawn back to Ryan Haywood, I hadn’t been paying attention.

Not that I can let him know that.

“Uh, yeah.” I lie.

“I don’t understand why.” Ryan approaches the fridge and pulls out a can of Diet Coke. “I’ve preferred Xbox for years. Perhaps it’s all the exclusives.”

“Destiny.” I agree with a nod. “Hotline Miami. Uncharted. Until Dawn.”

In case you haven’t noticed yet, my conversation skills have been a little rusty ever since the day I learned to talk. Listing PS4 exclusives is about as creative as it’s going to get under pressure.

“All excellent games.” Ryan Haywood doesn’t let my lack of articulate response throw him off. Why would he? He ‘ _knows’_ me, after all. “Well, except for Destiny. I’m sort of trapped in an abusive relationship with the game at the moment.”

“DLC keeps pulling you in?” I ask, a little more confident thanks to the idea of having something a little more coherent to say. Haywood smiles.

“Taken King was excellent. The one thing that game needed was story. Ranking system is still a little off, but I can wait.” He takes a loud sip from his can and my eyes can’t stare at the TV any longer. The effortless way he commands my attention without so much as eye contact is frightening, in an oddly calming way.

“Until Dawn was pretty cool.” You push me out of my comfort zone again. I’d probably thank you if my heart wasn’t beating loud enough to hear half a block away. “Like the story thing and the choices. I uh… I like Telltale games with decision based play through.”

“Personally, I thought that The Walking Dead was _phenomenal_.”

“Right?!” I ask excitedly. “Man, I cried like a bitch when Lee died. Not cool Telltale.”

“Clem’s pretty bad ass though.” Ryan smiles at me. “She can live without him.”

Pain throbs in the back of my head again. “Yeah.” I agree. “She can. But she shouldn’t have to.”

The room falls quiet after that, only the sound of the quiet news broadcast and the clenching of Ryan’s fist around his coke can. Suddenly, he can look anywhere but at me and my body longs for his gaze. It’s a peculiar way to feel about someone you only met a night ago.

Something catches Ryan’s eyes through the glass walls of the lounge.

“I should go-”

“-Where did you say we met again?”

Ryan freezes by the door. He doesn’t turn back to face me. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you around, Ray.”

 _Yes it does_ I think. However, not even you can make me vocalise it as Ryan slips out of the longue and back into the sea of executives without a single look back in my direction. It stings- the way he says my name with such ease and familiarity. Almost as if he’s mocking me.

_I know you. You don’t know me, but I know you._

I decide in that moment that I can’t help but hate him.

 

* * *

 

One of the reasons I don’t sleep at night and take so many drugs in order to is because I suffer from Night Terrors. I say terrors, more like one particular terror. For whatever reason relating to the shit my psychologist blathers on about whilst I pretend to listen, it’s always the same dream.

“I’m standing in a house,” Thick white smoke curls above mine and Gavin’s heads as my best friend’s best friend watches me through bleary eyes. “And like… I’m yelling it someone, but I can’t see who. Then, suddenly, I’m falling.”

“And then you wake up?” Gavin asks. I nod, and take another drag before passing the joint back to him.

“And then I wake up.” I confirm. “just like that.”

I feel it again, the falling but this time, but when I open my eyes I am back on the couch laid with my head in Gavin’s lap, his bony fingers carding through my thick black hair.

“It’s fine.” He mumbles, TV picture illuminating his face in the dark. “You’re here. You’re fine.”

“I don’t remember falling asleep.” I scramble to sit up. Gavin lets me go, and I push myself to the end of the couch. “Sorry. You should’ve gone home.”

“I’d never do that.” Gavin shakes his head. Still, he cannot look me in the eyes. He’s been hanging out with Michael too much, probably. His T-shirt does look a little big on him. Why the two insist on sharing clothes, I don’t understand. I was Michael’s best friend for ten years, we never swapped clothes once except for that one time I spilt pen ink over mine at his place. He and Gavin seem to do it for nothing more than the thrill.

“You should go home.” I say after half an hour of complete silence. I don’t know why, but in recent months I’ve lost the concept of time passing completely. I can stare at my computer for years and when I look at the clock, ten minutes has gone by. I can walk to the subway in ten minutes and open my eyes four hours later, sitting on the same cart riding backwards and forwards through the city.

“I’m probably just gonna go to bed.” I lie. “Maybe I’ll come over tomorrow night?” I have no intention of coming over tomorrow night. Gavin knows this, but he stands up and makes his way over to the door anyway.

“We miss you, Ray. Me and Michael. We miss you a lot.” I hear him mumble under his breath as he sluggishly drags his tired limbs towards my front door. I frown.

“Hey, Gav.” I call, right at the last second before the door clicks closed. It swings back open, and Gavin turns around to face me. “Why’d you always say that?”

“Say what?” He asks.

“That you miss me. How can you? I’m right here.”

Gavin shoots me a forced smile, one hand tucked in the front pocket of his jeans. “Right you are,” he nods, a heartless breath of a laugh wheezing from his lips. “You’re right there, Ray.” He says. “Always will be.”

If it’s meant to be reassuring, it isn’t. It’s bad enough making myself feel empty, let alone having my friends do it to. They miss me, Michael and Gavin. They miss me and I know they do. They miss me, but I only live five blocks away.

They miss me, but I haven’t gone anywhere.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You open your eyes stopped between 33rd and 28th on the Woodlawn Line.
> 
> My phone vibrates aggressively in my pocket, and I peer around the carriage through half closed eyes, wrung red and itchy with sleep. One other guy- probably a hobo lays across the seats at the other end of the cart. Aside from that, I am alone.

_Chapter T wo _

 

You open your eyes stopped between 33rd and 28th on the Woodlawn Line.

My phone vibrates aggressively in my pocket, and I peer around the carriage through half closed eyes, wrung red and itchy with sleep. One other guy- probably a hobo lays across the seats at the other end of the cart. Aside from that, I am alone.

My phone vibrates again, Michael’s name flashing angrily.

“Michael?”

“Dude- Thank _God_ you’re awake!”

Usually, Michael is the one scolding me for my irresponsible sleeping habits and general lack of. So, for him to sound so breathless and overjoyed at the idea of me, Ray Narvaez Jr, being awake at… 2:36 AM on the subway is nothing if not concerning. Either the world’s ending, or something far worse is beginning. Neither worry me.

“There’s been a breech-”

I hadn’t realised he was even still talking. When did everything else in life start fading to background noise? It had to be some time in the past year or so, because I don’t remember feeling like this before. Now, my life feels like somebody has turned the volume down and dimmed the lights. I barely see, barely hear,

Barely feel.

“Get over here, right now!”

What I grasp from the phone call is that as of right now, an unknown and seemingly untraceable source has launched some kind of cyber-attack on Rooster Teeth’s private servers which hold the entirety of the company’s information, and with Geoff and Michael being the only ones present in the office at half two in the morning for _God knows_ what reason, neither of them have a clue how to stop it. The unknown source is doing unknown things right in front of their eyes, and has successfully infiltrated the entire system.

Michael calls me because I’m the best he knows.

And he doesn’t even know about the whole BROWNMAN thing. That’s faith in friendship.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The breech is more than just a breech.

A breech is a bug or a virus, capable of creeping into a server and pulling out an email account or a credit card number. A breech is something I do for fun on random people I come across in life. A breech is what I attempted to pull on Ryan Haywood, to no avail. A breech is akin to mugging an old lady on the street. Shitty, but relatively easy as long as nobody else tries to stop you on your way home.

This particular attack is more of a full scale breaking-and-entering situation.

This _bug-_ whatever it is, has infiltrated past Achievement Hunter security and gotten into the Rooster Teeth servers and is currently raking simultaneously through every single server and hard-drive they’ve got. Considering Achievement Hunter is a cyber security network- we’ve got some pretty good fucking security ourselves. To access Rooster Teeth, whoever and whatever the bug is would have to have our passwords to disable our security and creep in unnoticed.

They’re good, whoever they are. Hard to track, fast and mostly successful.

I’m better.

Rooster Teeth set up a private jet to take us all the way over to Austin once I’ve successfully frozen the attack. I can’t disable it without being connected to the servers directly, but I can freeze it for enough time for us to get there. I explain this to Geoff in a rush, gathering up my laptop and my bag as he runs his hands over his face and through his hair continuously muttering about _how the fuck_ this all could’ve happened.

That’s the only answer I can’t give him.

The plane ride to Austin is quiet and stony. Just the way I like social company with my boss and my best friend, really. I keep my eyes glued to the laptop in front of me, monitoring the bug and making sure it hasn’t managed to fight off my counter attack yet. Michael watches me and Geoff watches Michael.

Neither say a single word.

We make it to the servers and I rush to plug my laptop in. Now I’m connected, I can also infiltrate the servers following the path the bug has created and kick it out. Geoff paces above me and Michael stands to the side, sweaty and anxious following the hours of tense air travel. All in all, it doesn’t really bother me that much.

Just another day in the office.

I follow the bug, trap it and disable it. The moment I do, it’s entire infrastructure spontaneously combusts, like some sort of self-destruct mode. It’s a trick of the code, something I’ve barely been able to pull off myself once or twice and have never heard of any other amateur doing the same. This perplexes me, but I scan the server for the tiniest trace I can possibly find.

Only one tiny insignificant subset of the code remains.

_fun.haus_

Whatever _fun_. _haus_ is, I delete it and block it from entering the server again, before typing off a hastily written warning to back off when Geoff and Michael are busy cheering and hugging at the success. It’s nothing elaborate, just a simple _whoever you are, back the fuck off RT Servers. – BROWNMAN._

If they’re anybody who’s anybody in the hacker community, they’ll know my username. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but I’m pretty fucking good- when people see my name, they know how far they need to run. I upload their program despite to my own personal flash drive when Geoff’s back is turned. Just in case.

“I want to buy you a drink.”

You open your eyes to look at Geoff Ramsey. Apparently, he’s been talking to you for a while, wide smile on his face as Michael looks pleased between the two of you. I scoff internally. _Look at me, Michael_ I think, _having real human conversation. Apparently._

“Ray doesn’t drink. Right buddy?”

I nod and confirm and smile in all the right places. I don’t have to listen to have the conversation more or less understood. Geoff is happy that I saved his job. Geoff wants to buy me a fancy jacket that isn’t a bright purple hoodie. Geoff wants to buy me fifteen-dollar socks in a design of my choice.

Michael watches like a kid who’s divorced parents just got back together. Pleased, but suspicious at the same time.

“How’s Gav?” Geoff asks. Michael’s lips quirk upwards into a relaxed, easy smile.

“Yeah, things are going well.” He nods. “We’re really happy.”

 _Things?_ I ask silently, eyes fixed on Michael’s smiling face. _What things? What aren’t you telling me?_

As far as I am aware, Michael and Gavin are closer-than-close best friends who not-so-secretly have the hots for each other. Any more, and I’m sure one of them would’ve told me. Michael’s my best friend.

He would fucking _tell_ me.

Geoff looks at Michael like a proud father watching his son and his prom date. I clench my fist around the plastic cup of coke that I didn’t know I had enough to hear it crack slightly.

Geoff and Michael either don’t notice, or simply don’t care.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“The one question we all really want to know the answer to- is why the _fuck_ could this even have happened?”

Michael recounts the story of the complete and utter _bollocking_ (as Gavin described it) by Gus Sorola and Joel Heyman and nameless others simultaneously on him, Jack, and Geoff. Whether Ryan was in the room or not, I don’t ask, because as soon as I heard that execs were on their way in unannounced, I crept out for an early lunch.

“Fucking assholes.” Michael scoffs, taking a drag and exhaling white smoke sharply over his head. Geoff rolls his eyes, and cracks the window open in his corner office. When exactly we crossed the threshold of employee informality to sharing a quarter with our fucking boss after hours inside his office, I guess was somewhere around the sixth month line. “And what was with Sorola- coming at me like that? Like it was _my_ fucking fault.”

“If anyone’s fault, it was yours Geoff.” Gavin laughs, oscillating from side to side in the leather bound office chair he’d rode out from under Geoff’s desk into the door. “You’re the boss, after all.”

“Whoever hacked us knew what they were fucking doing.” Geoff sighs, stubbing out whatever was left of the dope between his fingers on the edge of his desk. “I couldn’t have stopped them. Nobody could’ve.”

“He could’ve.”

I look up to see Michael pointing at me. Maybe it’s the dope in the air, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s supposed to be my subuxone night, but my skin itches when Michael’s brown eyes stare into mine.

“You fucking saved us Ray.” He coughs briefly, tossing the smoked-out joint from the window of the high rise. “Without you, all our asses would be jobless.”

“I agree.” Geoff stands. Gavin’s off his fucking face and Michael’s a little wobbly and loud, but Geoff has smoked double what the rest of us did and is still as steady as a fucking rock. “Now go on kids, fuck off home.” He stretches his back, wandering over to pick up his jacket. On his way past, he rests his hand on my shoulder in an affectionate gesture, and my body stiffens unconsciously.

Geoff pulls back immediately. “Sorry kid.” He yawns. “I forgot about your whole, no-touching thing.” He delves into his pockets, and the jangling of keys can’t draw my attention from his tattooed hands that had been resting on me. Close up, they looked so familiar, but I can’t quite picture why.

“Lock up when you’re done.” Geoff tosses the keys at Gavin, who catches them one-handed without so much as a blink as Geoff slips out through the office door. I watch him leave with a mixture of contempt and intrigue in my gut. How does _Geoff Lazer_ _Ramsey_ , my boss’ boss even know that I’m not that into direct contact with strangers?

Thinking about it, I look over my idiotic friends, now huddled in the corner of the office together, whispering and giggling. Nothing is sacred with those two, so maybe one of them was keen enough to share with the man that could fire me for looking at him the wrong way.

Not that Geoff ever would do that. Before we’d even started smoking, he’d called me in his office where Michael and Gavin were already waiting, and asked me if I wanted a job.

“I… already have a job.” I explained, glancing around the room nervously. Geoff Ramsey grinned at me, not sat behind his desk but on top of it, ankles crossed and trousers shucked up to reveal colourful socks inside shoes that probably cost the same amount as my rent.

“A better job.” Michael pitched in, stood behind Geoff and the desk. “Somewhere high up in Rooster Teeth’s tech department. They fucking slaughtered us in our meeting earlier, but they had nothing but good to say about your work. Burnie wants you working for him directly.”

“Nah.” My nose wrinkled. “I… think I’m good here.”

Here was boring. My job is boring- I sit in a cubicle for seven and a half hours and correct mistakes in the code that are about as simple to me as a fifth grade spelling test. But I don’t complain, because a job brings order and order helps me sleep. I can’t keep track of most of the hours in my days- but at least I know that from nine-to-five I am in one place, doing one monotonous task that I can lose myself in.

The ennui satisfies me. If that’s not fucked up, I don’t know what is.

“Still.” Gavin yawned. “Burnie wants to thank you in person. Said swing by his office Friday afternoon, have a chat. Who knows,” he shrugged. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

For a second, I simply stand and stare outside the Headquarters of one of the most powerful media companies the United States (and the rest of the western world) have likely ever seen.

It gets colder every time you make your way through the familiar winding corridors of the Rooster Teeth HQ. It’s a vast building with a multitude of different sites and subsections to deal with different things, but you can make your way up to the executive floor with your eyes shut backwards.

And you’ve only been there twice.

Burnie’s office is the penthouse- the kind you need an invitation and a special security key for. The security isn’t anything you couldn’t get past, obviously- but you’re the actual invited party this time around, and the elevator concierge smiles at you as you step inside. You’ve never seen the guy before in your life, but he smiles like he knows you.

I hand over a tip (five dollars is steep enough) and head out the elevator, towards the office. Burnie’s secretary, a blonde haired woman I vaguely recognise to be named Kara raises her hand to wave at me as I walk past, but at the last second, stops herself and casts her eyes back to her computer screen.

“Mr Burns says head straight on in, Ray- I mean, sorry- Mr Narvaez.”

I nod. “...thanks.”

The ‘meeting’ feels more like an interrogation. Put it down to Burnie Burns, corporate overlord described as a suburban dad to play good cop/bad cop with himself. He alternates between standing and sitting, talking loudly and verbose and leaning in quietly, softly. It’s a catastrophe of a performance to the naked eye, but somehow- it draws me in. Every word that comes from his mouth resonates. Burnie Burns has the ability to make you listen- even if you don’t want to.

“Last chance, Ray.” He says my name with such a mix of authority and fondness, I sit up a little straighter. “Work directly under the tech division here- make six figures within a year. Become a millionaire by thirty. Who’d be stupid enough to pass up an offer like that?”

I am not a stupid person. Burnie’s offer is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and I know it- but something in the heels of my feet and the palms of my hands tell me that I have to hold on to what I have. I’ve never been one to avoid great change, but I hang onto Achievement Hunter with the edges of my fingernails desperately- because for some reason, I’m afraid what I’ll land into if I let go.

“Sorry Burnie.” I say. “I’ve gotta stick with what I know.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Ryan is standing outside the office when I exit, leant against a wall staring at the TV monitor hanging on the wall. The newscaster discusses the recent Rooster Teeth breech, as millions of people panic that their oh-so-important, ‘personal’ information is in jeopardy. As if anything is _personal_ anymore in this modern age.

“Hey, you get off early on Monday’s right?” I ask him. It surprises me, because I don’t remember how or why I would possibly know such specific information. My confusion clearly doesn’t register to Ryan, he floats over it effortlessly. Like a spun web, I become trapped in the wonder and the world that is _Ryan Haywood_ and I don’t remember at what point in the conversation it felt natural to suggest he take be back to his shiny chrome covered apartment- but then, I mixed suboxone and dope last night, so I’m probably just hallucinating.

That- or it’s _you_ again.

Ryan’s apartment is a bubble of perfection. It’s much too perfect to even be real- The furniture is too straight and soft and the appliances to shiny, window sparking as the dull New York sunlight catches them. This is a _house_ , sure- but it isn’t a home. This is not an apartment that is lived in in the slightest, it’s a cover, a façade- a show home to be broadcasted on the front page of a glossy magazine. I don’t know why, but for some reason, in my eyes Ryan doesn’t belong here. It’s his apartment, and _he’s_ the one who looks out of place, stood in the kitchen unit delving through the cupboards in search of where his glasses are stored.

Everything in this apartment is sorted and stored and completely unused, from the shiny stainless steel oven to the silver knives and forks in the cutlery drawer. Awkwardly, I sit perched on one of the high stools at the breakfast bar.

Ryan makes me a milkshake just the way I like it- extra thick, no whipped cream, one fresh strawberry on the top.

In addition to the milkshake, he waves a few milligrams of coke in a plastic bag around to appease me but it isn’t my narcotics night, and the last thing I need it to be coked up around the most confusing man in my life. However, Ryan’s stash is fully stocked, because he’s got weed too- and before I can protest we’re sitting at opposite ends of the pristine white leather sofa, rolling joints and lighting up together as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Ryan rolls just like I do, quickly and with precision. Ryan’s joint is an exact mirror image of mine, every tuck and fold in exactly the same place, and when he pulls a chrome lighter from his pocket I fumble in my hoodie for mine, which is exactly the same.

“That’s weird.” I say flicking the lighter on with the pad of my thumb. Ryan only hums in response before he lights up, loosens his tie and sits back in the sofa, taking a long, slow drag. I watch, impressed- because Ryan doesn’t look like the kind of guy who can hold smoke for as long as he does, but he must have lungs of steel- only a few faint wisps of white puff leaking from his nostrils as his eyes fall closed for a few, blissful seconds.

Whatever it is that Ryan’s given me, it’s considerably stronger than regular weed- so it isn’t long before we both end up completely baked, watching cartoons on Ryan’s shiny 4K curved TV and laughing our assess of at jokes directed towards sixth graders. Somewhere between _Adventure Time_ and _The Regular Show_ , we end up sat a little more _together-_ Ryan’s arm slung lazily around my narrow shoulders and my legs tucked up comfortably on top of his. One heavy hand drags lazily up and down from my knee to my thigh absentmindedly, like an instinct or a reflex. Ryan doesn’t even realise he’s doing it until he catches me staring, but he doesn’t stop. He smiles, a doped-up airy sort of smile that I can’t help but mirror.

It’s all too clear, to familiar. It feels too natural and for the next twenty minutes or so, I begin to wonder if it’s a dream. It’s probably a dream, I decide- because how could something as comfortable as this even possibly be real?

Anything goes in a dream- so when I lean my face up to push against his and he butts his forehead softly against mine, there’s nothing really stopping me from leaning up and pressing my lips against his, is there? If this was real- which it isn’t- he’d certainly pull away.

Except it’s _completely_ real- and the realisation hits me like a bucket of cold water when Ryan tugs me up to straddle his lap and kisses me like a man starved in the middle of the third ad break.

It real- but it still feels chillingly natural, Ryan’s hands running up and down the small of my back and around my waist desperately as he tries to pull us closer together- as if chest to chest isn’t enough for him. Ryan wants us to fucking merge together like a glitched fucking sims character, and he holds me tightly like he’s worried if he let’s go, I’ll just disappear. For some reason, it hurts and I love the pain- my hands grabbing at his long hair and running it through his fingers as the kiss becomes more desperate, leaving it up to me- the least in control human being to walk to fucking _earth_ , to try and wrangle it into something manageable. Still, I like the feeling of Ryan’s hair when he grows it out longer- but I’ve certainly never touched it before.

When Ryan kisses me it’s like a rehearsed dance. Somehow- he can predict and follow my movements perfectly, he knows what I like, he knows what I don’t. He lays my down on the couch and sucks hickeys under my ear- just where I always like them to be. And then suddenly, I realise that Ryan likes scratches on his back and hickeys on his collarbones and shoulders so his co-workers can’t tease him any more than they already do, and somehow he tells me this without saying a word.

The whole event is without words; somehow, we didn’t need them.

 

* * *

 

 

You wake up laid on a white leather couch you don’t recognise the feel of, a thick woollen blanket covering your naked body as cold morning sunlight streaks through the windows and shines in your eyes.

My glasses are folded neatly by the ashtray, so I fumble to pull them on and dress hastily, the pouring water of the shower and Ryan humming making my heart race. The only thing on my mind is getting the _hell_ out of here- I’m not sure why put my head is fucking throbbing and the soles of my feet itch to run. The situation feels strange yet familiar- I can perfectly imagine Ryan washing his hair in the shower, humming quietly to himself. He’s waiting for me to join him- that’s how it usually goes between us.

Except- there is no _usual_ for Ryan and I, because there _is_ no Ryan and I. I have _never_ had sex with him before last night.

Have you?

 

* * *

 

 

You wake up on the subway- and suddenly, it’s night time. You’re fairly sure you left Ryan’s in the morning, so however many hours you’ve spent sat at the edge of the last carriage is a blur. Your phone vibrates, a text from Michael, two from Gavin, and five missed calls from a private number.

You ignore it.

All I can think of is Ryan Haywood, holding me down, stroking my face- he kisses me roughly, but then, in another place, it’s soft and gentle and down my neck- dark hickeys left around my hipbones and my thighs. That time, it’s in a bed instead of the couch- large and soft and drawn out. Ryan knows what I like, lifting his hands under my knees to make me lay backwards with my head pressed against the softest pillows we own.

The images assault me all at once- a thousand different dreams of Ryan and I- sometimes in a bed, in the shower, in the back office of a place I think I know. One sticks out- of me on Ryan’s lap in his office- not having sex but just _kissing_ , softly and familiarly with little giggles in between each one, as Ryan tries to shoo me out so he can get back to work.

(Ryan always gives into me eventually.)

 

* * *

 

 

 

I sprint from the subway stop to my home, frantically avoiding every suit I see roaming the streets until I’ve made my way into my apartment. Dalia sees me on the way in, calls my name, but I ignore her. For some reason- it hurts to look at her; her hair is too dirty blonde and her eyes too blue and suddenly, it’s all too familiar.

I have a box at the back of my abandoned bookshelf for emergencies like these.

The morphine here isn’t even crushed, so I spend a few agitated minutes with the pestle and mortar I stole from Gavin’s place months ago before drawing out five thick lines on the corner of my desk. When that’s not enough, I swirl my fingers in the pot at the remaining dust and rub it around my gums until my heart begins to beat erratically again and my fingers curl in on each other on their own accord.

It’s perfect- glorious- benevolent, even. It’s everything I need to forget, all about _Ryan_ fucking _Haywood_ and the way he makes me feel despite the fact that I don’t barely even know who he is. The morphine is nice enough to fight the hallucinations of Ryan making my eyes roll back into my head and marking my body with fingertip shaped bruises.

Michael calls, but my hands won’t work so I don’t bother answering. Eventually, laid straight like a corpse, my eyes catch up with the rest of my body and shut down, spots washing my vision until I slip into blissful, ignorant unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

 

 

I then proceed to have the worst Sunday morning of my entire fleeting life.

My body is no longer paralysed by the drugs, which is a plus because it means I can wash my greasy hair and pale skin in the shower. Catching sight of myself in the mirror makes me feel queasy, the side of my neck tarnished by Ryan’s mouth, dark blotchy spots littering my skin like an art-school dropout’s canvas. I try my best to ignore them, instead focusing my attention on desperately attempting to scrub away all the memories of Ryan and I and the way when he touched me- he made it feel like he’d been waiting for me his whole life.

A single slice of toast is clearly too much for my stomach to handle, and it get vomited back into the sink within a few minutes, so I settle on a final two lines of morphine (it’s a substantial enough breakfast, right?) and shrug on my hoodie, grab my backpack and head out.

Where I’m heading exactly, I’m not sure. I need somewhere to think where I know I can’t be interrupted, and the subway is beginning to become some kind of time portal that propels me forwards hours within the blink of an eye, so I’m not really sure if I can trust it.

“You okay man?” Dalia asks, back again in the hallway. I avoid looking her in the eyes.

“Just a little under the weather.” I shrug. I turn my back and walk out quickly before she can ask any more questions.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Growing up on the outskirts of New York City as a kid who hated sports, other people, and being outside altogether, there wasn’t many places you could go for fun when your mother insisted you ‘get some fresh air’.

Sure, all the normal kids went into the city to cause havoc or run through central park, but not you. You, obviously, were different.

The rooftop of the old abandoned carwash hasn’t changed in the few years since you’ve been there, and the memories overlap and collide from the moment you haul yourself up there. You smoked up here for the first time when you were fourteen, had your first kiss when you were seventeen. Oddly enough, you drank coffee for the first time up here, got rejected for the first time up here. Then with the firsts are seconds and the thirds, the fourth time you tried alcohol and still didn’t like it, the seventh time you smoked cigarettes, the fifth time you contemplated ending it all before it had a chance to really begin.

All my favourite happy memories.

I don’t feel as happy as I should do, back up on that old dusty roof where my life had fallen apart and back together so many times. Sitting on the edge, all I can feel is the itching of morphine clinging to the inside of my nose, making my upper lip and my gums burn. I don’t just want it anymore- I _need_ it and that quickly becomes unable to ignore when a couple of cigarettes can’t sate me.

It’s the thing I’ve been trying so desperately to avoid with my rigorous fucking schedule and my restrictions and prohibitions. But I just had to fuck it up, didn’t I? I had to let Ryan Haywood get inside my fucking head (along with other places) and now- it’s a fucking addiction _._

If there was ever a reason I stuck to a decided schedule when it comes to drugs, this was it. Didn’t I used to take it all so seriously? I knew what could I take and what I shouldn’t and I knew what was too much and what was not enough, didn’t I? Why did I throw it all away?

Last night was too much. Now- it’s not enough.

I throw my bag onto the concrete floor and delve through it frantically, searching for the little orange container of medication that will surely be my saving grace, tossing out notepads and cigarette packets, a couple of grams of dope I didn’t know I had left and lighter after broken lighter until I find what it is I’m looking for.

At first, it’s a moment of pure bliss- merely turning the bottle over in my hands stills the itch for a few seconds until I crack the top and realise the silence. It didn’t fucking rattle. Tiny little pills lost in a plastic container, but they didn’t make a single sound.

It’s empty.

At the discovery of this- the one thing keeping me from overdosing or becoming a junkie, I know that I need to get home. However, my body doesn’t want to co-operate with my mind and as I stand to run, my legs give way, shaking like a deer’s until I fall back onto the floor, laid out on the cold concrete.

And the catch? It doesn’t even feel bad. I roll over to lay flat on my back and stare up at the stars in the clear daytime sky. It isn’t even bad- it’s _bliss_. Burning, blistering summer’s bliss. I could lay up here forever.

Maybe I will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next Saturday! Please leave comments/kudos :)
> 
> Q: Who do you think Ryan is? What is Michael hiding?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad habits are hard to break.

_ Chapter Three _

 

You open your eyes in a back alley at least an hour away from the city. The girl in front of you is deathly pale and as fragile looking as a champagne flute, stick thin limbs slimmer than your own bare to the elements, revealing the odd crude tattoo peeking from the bottom of cut off denim black shorts. Her arms, slender and withered are littered with tiny puncture marks that swell red with infection and disease.

Only when you look down at your own hairy forearms, do you realise that you match.

Heroine is a particularly risky drug. You’ve seen _Pulp Fiction_ and you’ve certainly watched _The Basketball Diaries_ at least five times growing up to jerk it over Leonardo DiCaprio. You know the stories- people getting addicted in a single hit. You’d tried it once before as a desperate twenty-one year old with the potential of drinking wasted on you. It hadn’t agreed with you.

“Where are you going?” the girl-Sandra, possibly- asks as I scramble to my feet, itchy palms grabbing at my backpack to pull out my phone.

“Home.” I mumble. “I-I have to get home.”

The neighbourhood is frighteningly unfamiliar and I scroll through thirty plus missed calls from Michael, Gavin, Geoff and then again- the unknown number. A tiny part of me still longs for it to be Ryan’s voice behind he dial tone, but the number is withheld and impossible to redial. If I call Michael, he’ll only be disappointed, and I can’t face that. Gavin is a bust as he would only tell Michael. Ditto Geoff- he would only tell Gavin, so I don’t really have many other people to call.

I’ll have to make my own way home- a daunting task in the middle of a dirty alleyway with literal heroin wrapping itself through my veins. Alone, it wouldn’t have been too much trouble but the heroin is strong and it mixes poorly with the morphine cut with coke and the dope from earlier. I’m the cooking pot, and the chef doesn’t seem to care enough to measure out the ingredients, tossing in a mixture of raw materials before cranking the heat up enough to boil it all.

I’m sweating, but the air around me is cold and my breath fogs as I stumble through the alley and out onto the street. My phone buzzes- Michael again, so I answer it in a haste to shut him up. _I’m fine- completely okay_ , or at least that’s what I think I’ve told him as I trip over my own loose shoes (when did I take the laces out? Is that what’s wrapped so tightly around my arm?) and my face slams into-

A pillow.

My body- now stripped from the confines of clothes to underwear only writhes under the bedsheets. My skin burns every time it touches the cotton and painfully, I push my head back further into the unfamiliar pillow and let out a cry. The room is dark and unfamiliar and tears rush down my face because I’ve gone and done it again- let myself get bad- except this time, Michael isn’t there to pick up the pieces.

Eventually, something soothes my body into a fitful sleep. My mind’s reward to me- it’s patron- for plaguing it with illegal drugs is a running movie real of painful nightmares. None of them make much sense (when do nightmares ever?) but they all involve the same reoccurring theme.

Unsurprisingly, I dream about Ryan.

Sometimes, he’s leading me to the top of the Rooster Teeth Head Quarters and tossing me off the edge of the skyscraper and at other times, his hands are wrapping around my neck and pinning me to the whitewashed wall of his shiny show-home- pushing tight enough for my face to grow purple and my airway to be completely crushed until I’m a choking hyperventilating mess, big fat ugly tears rolling down my face as he laughs wickedly in front of my face.

The crescendo of the masterpiece is a dream I’m all too familiar with. It’s always the same scenario, me standing in an unfamiliar bedroom that surely belongs to me, arguing- shouting with a face I can never make out. Except this time, the face morphs and clears into a vivid picture of Ryan, red in the face and _so fucking_ angry. Just the same as usual, I reach out to shove him away and he shoves back until I lose my footing and go sailing out of the window- down into the desolate snowy grass below.

It’s always a painful dream to wake up to, especially alone in the centre of a bed I still can’t recognise the feel of, sobs wracking my body painfully as my skin continues to burn, faded only slightly against the bedsheets.

Or maybe- I’m not alone, as a pale hand comes out of the darkness and a face comes into view. This one I recognise, and it only makes the tears fall heavier as Michael reaches out to stroke his hand through my dark hair soothingly.

“You’re not here,” I whisper tearfully to the image. “I’m all alone.”

Michael smiles.

“You’re not alone Ray. I’m right here- just like I always said I’d be.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next time I open my eyes, they are met with stinging white tiles, white porcelain, silver taps and an array of own-brand toiletries dotting the shelves. The bath is only half run, milky water swirling around my shins as I sit with my knees hunched up to my chest and Michael continuously runs warm water over me with a plastic water jug. The relief of the water, washing away the pain that throbs across the ridges of my spine and the skin of my scalp makes me sigh heavily, letting my head rock backwards.

“Still with me buddy?”

A nod. A sniff. Hands lathered with soap slicking my hair back flatly.

“Good.” Michael smiles. “I was close to calling an ambulance when you started convulsing, but Gavin told me not to. He knew you’d hate me if I did.”

“Gavin’s smart.” I groan resting my face against my knees as Michael rinses the shampoo gently from my hair.

“Yeah.” Michael agrees. “He sure is.”

A few minutes pass silently, Michael continuously rinsing my hair and stroking my back and washing my shoulders with feather light touches as I sit silent and still and let him until eventually, I ask.

“Hey… Michael?”

He sounds tired, but replies with a casual; “Yeah buddy?”

I frown, staring around the room with squinted eyes in a poor attempt to focus. “Where am I?” I ask. Michael’s hand tenses in my hair, but only for a second. His voice is strained and tired and sad and fed-up sounding. Michael’s always been prone to sudden angry outbursts, and after being his friend for so many years, I can tell when he’s holding back.

His voice shakes, but only slightly:

“This is your apartment Ray.”

“Oh…” I roll my neck and it clicks loudly, echoing in the bathroom. Michael’s voice is foggy, but the click of my bones is clear as a whistle. I squint, and glance around the cold, unfamiliar room. “I guess I didn’t even recognise it.”

I look back up to Michael- his beautiful face lit up by the light bouncing off the tiled walls. His freckles sparkle but his bright eyes are dark and tired and the skin on his forehead is pulled taught into a frown aimed at the cloudy water. He mumbles something that sound like _I know, buddy-_ but I know he doesn’t mean it.

“Hey Michael?” I ask.

“Yeah?” he doesn’t look up, and all too quickly I feel my face crumple slightly. I’ve always hated crying, but I can’t stop it. Michael can hear me, the quiet hitches of breath and sniffs, but he’s kind enough to pretend not to.

“I wanna go home.” You say. I’ve been shut out again- and your voice takes over mine. It doesn’t even sound like me- quiet and meek and afraid and all the things that I am not. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” a few tears spill down your face, and Michael watches them with a pained expression before drying his hands on the bath towel folded on the sink. “I want to go back home.” You sob.

“Oh yeah?” For a second, before I remember who he is- it almost sounds as if Michael wants to cry too. “And where’s that?” he asks.

“I… I don’t know.” Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. Or is it you? Because what I stare at, up on the wall, certainly doesn’t look like me. I’ve never been this thin, have I? Where’s my pudgy skinny-fat physique from too many pizza rolls and microwavable lasagnes? I- you- whoever it is, staring back with brown hollow eyes and dry flaky skin is a complete stranger to me.

I ask again, “Hey Michael?”

And again, he sighs- “Yeah buddy?”

“No more morphine.” I shake my head. For the first time in a long time, Michael smiles and I know from the dimples in his cheeks that he is genuine.

“That’s right man.” He nods. “No more morphine.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Michael tucks me right back into my bed after slipping me a subuxone and a sleeping pill with a glass of vitamin water that he forces me to drink, and within minutes I feel more relaxed, barely awake until Michael strips off and climbs into the bed beside me. He lays close to me, and after a minute, reaches out to pull my clean body towards his so that I can rest against his narrow pale chest and he can wrap his arms tightly around me. Only then do I realise how cold I felt before- and Michael is like a fucking space heater, so fucking warm and inviting that it’s impossible to even imagine rolling out of his embrace.

“Hey.” I joke shakily into the darkness. “Gavin won’t try and fight me, will he?”

“No.” Michael smiles, half-asleep. “Gav’s an idiot, but he knows that I would never cheat on him. And he knows that you need me.” To prove his point, he clutches me tighter, but one lingering detail still doesn’t add up in my head.

“So?” I ask, thoughts drifting back to plane rides with Michael and Geoff. “You guys _have_ finally admitted your stupid gay crushes on each other then?”

Sleepily, Michael mumbles back; “I admitted it two years ago when we started dating, Ray.”

I don’t ask any more questions after that. Michael and Gavin, despite being inseparably infuriating only met a year and a half ago anyway. Michael must be confused- he’s tired and drained from looking after my sorry ass.

He doesn’t mean it-

He couldn’t?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Personally, I’ve never understood the mantra of _I Hate Monday’s_. To me, Monday is the same as Tuesday, Tuesday as Wednesday, Wednesday as Sunday and Sunday as Friday. After a while, all the days of the week begin to merge together.

So when I drag myself to the office on Monday morning, met with worried glances from nameless faces and friends alike- I keep on a game face with dark eyes and my hoodie zipped tightly over my shirt. Michael had indirectly threatened me with bodily harm if I dared come in to work but then, I’d stopped speaking to him the moment I realised that he’d apparently been in a relationship with Gavin for _however_ long without once confiding in me about it.

They fucking _lived_ together- and I didn’t even know.

So fuck Michael, and fuck Gavin too with their pitying looks of worry and disappointment. The worst of the withdrawal was over and I’d bitterly accepted the bottle of suboxone that Gavin had dropped off in my apartment the night after Michael slept over. Sure, my skin still burns under my ‘formal’ work shirt and my nose still itches but it’s dulled, slightly. I can ignore it, for a while.

“Kid?”

You open your eyes in Geoff Ramsey’s office. It’d be totally normal, if it was night time and we were smoking pot together, but instead its mid-day and his dress shirt is buttoned up all the way to the neck. Light streams through his open-style office and for once, he actually sits behind his desk instead of on it, brow furrowed in a pensive glare. Occasionally, his hand will move from under his chin and will rub agitatedly at his forehead whilst he looks at me, sat opposite him with flakes of skin around my nose and mouth and tired sunken eyes.

“You look like shit.” He says, after I don’t respond. Weakly, I look up.

“Thanks.” I scoff. “Way to sugar coat it.”

“Ray.” Geoff doesn’t crack that smile- for once. Gavin’s always teased that Geoff’s cruelly uncontrollable laugh could cure cancer, but for once, he doesn’t use it on me. His mouth is etched into a tried frown, and he sighs deeply. “Kid- you know I care about you. We all do and Michael told me-”

“-Michael _told you_?”

“Yes.” Geoff’s eyes flit back up to me, briefly enough to look sorry before he looks down again at his desk. “He and Gav are worried about you, and so am I. I don’t think you should even be here, right now- you should be in the fucking hospital but Michael refuses to let me take you, so-”

“What the fuck.” My voice is low enough to growl. “What the fuck gives _you_ the right to be concerned about _me_?”

Geoff Ramsey looks at me with the same distant familiarity I see in my nameless, faceless co-workers eyes every day. Geoff Ramsey looks at me as if he knows me- but neither of us can really understand how or why.

“Go home, Ray.” He says, “I’m not arguing with you. Go home.”

“I’m _fine_.”

“Here’s five bucks for a coffee.” Geoff stretches up from his desk, tucking a five-dollar bill forcefully in the inside of my beanie, before resting his hand ever-so-lightly on my shoulder. The embrace last barely a second. Geoff knows I don’t like to be touched. “Get out of here. I don’t want to see your face in this building again for another week or two.”

Surprisingly, even to myself, I don’t bother arguing. There’s something about Geoff that is so lazily authoritative, something in his cold eyes and tattooed knuckles that makes your body scream to _comply_ and obey. As I lean out the doorway, hood pulled tightly over my beanie and crisp five-dollar bill in my fist, Geoff calls out my name one last time.

“Yeah?” I turn.

“I love you- kid. Don’t ever forget that.”

It should be weird, my boss of only a year and a half telling me he loves me- but for some reason it feels _natural_. It’s friendly and tiredly protective. Geoff is the father figure and the laid-back boss and the fun uncle all in one loosely wrapped brown-paper package. Geoff smokes pot with the lads and ruffles our hair- even mine sometimes- and I don’t try stop him. Geoff knows I don’t like to be touched. Geoff respects it.

I respect him, and I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The headache hits me long before the hallucinations do- forced into sitting on the subway because I don’t drive and everyone else I know is working. I’m precarious getting on as not to fall asleep and wake up in the middle of the night at the end of the line- but it’s all fruitless once the pain starts in the back of my head.

And then roll on the visions.

It starts out oddly enough, with Michael. My best friend, smiling and grinning and shouting and swearing. But then, he isn’t smiling at me. It’s Gavin- standing next to him with the biggest matching grin, laughing and teasing at he always does, but with Michael, it’s always carried a little less malice. They’re disgustingly domesticated- kissing by the fucking watercooler in the office, holding hands down the street and under the booth in the bar. Video game nights with the three of us and another person, Gavin perched in the corner of the couch with his legs draped across Michael’s lap comfortably.

Michael- taking Gavin to lazer tag and coming back with the news that he finally asked the idiot on a fucking date. And weirdly enough- he says this to _me_ , and I beam just as widely because I’m so _fucking happy_ for them- even though I didn’t know until right now.

The pain stops and I wake up to my phone vibrating, _RYAN_ flashing giant and boldly across the display. Ryan fucking Haywood- who I still can’t figure out. Even looking at his name written on my phone without a string of over-the-top emojis makes my head throb again, but I ignore it and pick up the call.

“Ray?”

“Yeah- what?”

“Are you okay?” he sounds panicked, which makes me frown. Why Ryan would have the audacity to be concerned about me, I really don’t know. I haven’t even attempted to make contact with him since the morning I snuck out of his apartment. My last interaction with him resulted in me nearly overdosing- so why the hell would I bother trying again?

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I rub my head. A few people sat around me glance at me, concerned for a second but a few death glares send them back to their own mediocre lives. “What is it- what do you want?” I snap.

The thought only occurs to me after he’s said the dreaded words- _we need to talk_ and the promise to drive round and pick me up at the next subway stop in his car that I don’t remember giving Ryan my number and I certainly don’t remember saving his. I scroll through my call logs but the _PRIVATE_ still remains. I pretend, even to myself that I’m not bothered by this at all.

I hate his car- black and sleek with tinted windows and leather interior. It smells too new and too clean and feels too sharp and firm. Ryan isn’t cold and hard like this. Ryan’s soft, and sweet and smells like sawdust and computers.

I don’t even ask where we’re going- I just let Ryan drive me through memorable streets in silence. He looks over at me again and again but I stare blankly ahead. I’m probably just a little too scared to look Ryan in those stupidly beautiful blue eyes because I know- the minute I do I’ll be telling him every single detail of what’s happened- the overdose, the withdrawal, Michael, Gavin, Geoff- everything.

And I really don’t think I’m ready to have that conversation just yet.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

You open your eyes in your favourite place in the entire city.

When I was a kid, an arcade was the best place in the world for me and for my mom. She could drop me off and see the back of me for hours, nothing but a bag of quarters to my name. in an arcade, I’d never have to worry about bullies or street kids or gangsters trying to rob me. I was _Ray Narvaez Jr_ , the biggest baddest gamer in the tristate-area. I had all the high scores and even more important, I had the manager of the joint- old Mr Sanders to slip me free games and pat my knee and watch me when my mom ran late at work.

This particular arcade lasted a little longer than the other arcades in the city did- a few still loyal fans and nerds showing up to fuck around on a claw machine or a _Time Crises_ set-up. But after a while, with in-home gaming easier and more accessible than ever, the arcade died as all things did, along with my childhood.

How Ryan knows taking me here is the secret to securing all my secrets is infuriating and worrying and above all- confusing. We sit together on the edge of the fake-pier above the abandoned man-made beach with the arcade lights desolate and dark behind us, as I talk and talk about it all. Michael and Gavin, Morphine and Heroine, Pain and Loneliness, Dalia and Overdosing. Ryan sits and listens until my hands ball up into fists and I turn on the railings to stare at the shell of the arcade with wet eyes. His hand settles on my back, but I flinch away.

“You love it here.” He says. My body tenses.

“Why the fuck did you bring me here?” I grumble. Ryan smiles, flashing me a glimpse of his sparkling white teeth behind his soft pink lips.

“It’s your favourite place in the city.” Ryan tells me. “You love it here.” He repeats.

I shift further away from him, and my face etches into a frown. Ryan hops off the railing, instantly taking a few steps away, but doesn’t tear his eyes from mine, like he’s scared I’ll disappear in a blink. But then, he should be. I can disappear when I want to, and right now, my legs itch to run- because how the _fuck_ would he know something so personal, let alone well enough to mention is so innocently? Since the day I bumped into him, something has irked me about Ryan Haywood. This only adds to the lengthy list.

“How the fuck did you know that?” I ask. Ryan bites his lip- his tell. He’s always been terrible at poker for a reason.

“I… uh- lucky guess?” he tries. It’s all too easy, too light and playful with a gentle shrug and the pull of a smile at his lips. But I’m not playing- not his games. Not anymore, anyway.

“How the _fuck_ did you know to bring me here?” I ask again, more aggressively this time. Ryan swallows loudly, glancing down at the wooden slanted floors of the boardwalk. He isn’t just nervous- that becomes obvious when his hands curl into fists and his thumb rubs across his ring finger. He’s _frightened_. Ryan rarely is frightened.

“Tell me.” I demand. Ryan looks up, relaxes his shoulders, sighs. All I can think is that it’s all too fucking easy.

“Because…” he mumbles. “I know _you_ , Ray.”

The way he says my name has always rubbed me the wrong way. He hasn’t earned it- doesn’t deserve the ease and the familiarity of my name in his mouth. He says my name like he’s chewed on it so many times, a beaten lump of gum with every ounce of flavour drawn clean out.

“You don’t fucking know anything about me.” I _glower_ with enough anger to rival Michael in front of a flash game. “Why’d you even call- looking for another hook-up?” I snarl. “-because I got news for you buddy, I’m not a booty call and-”

“Ray,” Ryan cuts me off with a frown, before rooting through his trouser pocket to pull out his phone. He fiddles with it for a few seconds- he’s never been the best with phones, but his call log is clear once he holds it up, level with my face. “You called _me_.”

I want him to be lying. I’m so desperate to unmask his deceit and his lies and his general shadiness. But for once- _I’m_ the one biting at my lip and gripping the railings extra tightly because it’s true- my name clear as day in the _recent calls_.

 _Ray_ _x (3)_

Okay, so maybe I didn’t just call him. I fucking _triple dialled_ him.

“What no I didn’t- I…” I shake my head. Again, the pain in the back, right above the base of my skull throbs. It gets worse when I think of Ryan, even worse than when Geoff looks at me with concern and when Michael and Gavin hold hands. “Just stop _it_. I don’t understand!” I shake my head, vigorously. Ryan remains still in front of me, and I snap my head up to look at me. “How do you know this is my favourite place in the city?”

“You told me” Ryan says. I watch him, patiently wait for a tell to slip through- but it doesn’t. All the signs point towards the truth, which would all be good and well if it had actually happened. But it hasn’t- that I am adamant about.

“I didn’t!” I yell.

“I know you” He yells back, with equal fervour. However, after the words escape his mouth, he looks immediately guilty and retreats back into myself as I stare at him, wide eyed and teeth gritted like a rabid animal.

I practically spit my words, seeping venom right at him. “You don’t know shit.” I growl. Ryan’s eyes darken at that, and his chest heaves slightly, shoulders stuck ridged and his fists, clenched so tightly by his sides. For a second, I tense where I’m sat on the railing- because oddly enough, I feel afraid of a man I hardly know and perhaps that’s the scariest part.

Ryan takes a deep breath. Then, he speaks.

“Your name is Ray Narvaez Jr, your birthday is September fifteenth. You grew in in Queens, and then Long Island- you _hate_ the movie _Hackers_ and secretly love the movie _Clueless_. Your favourite football team is the Steelers!” he relays the information like facts in a database, but doesn’t pause for a single breath in between like someone does when they’re fighting to recall information. For Ryan, it all comes so naturally.

I frown. “Oh yeah?” I say, but I suddenly don’t have the energy to pack my words with as much malice. Something about Ryan completely drains me, every time we touch. Maybe he’s a demon. At least that would make more sense than this indescribable feeling of _overwhelm_.

“Tell me something that isn’t on Michael’s Facebook page.” I glare. Before he can reply, I move to hop off the railing. I know the minute my feet hit the floor, I’ll run- straight from Ryan and straight towards the nearest dealer for a fix. It’s all too much- Ryan and me. My brain throbs and my chest races and Ryan’s eyes watch me like a vet with a spooked cat. Quickly, he reaches forwards with his hand rested against my chest gently, stopping me from leaving.

When he looks at me, his eyes are impossibly gentle.

“You’re Ray Narvaez Jr.” he repeats. “Your birthday is September Fifteenth-”

“You said that one already.”

He ignores my interruption. “-and.” He says. “You had your first kiss when you were eleven years old. His name was Mark and he was your dad’s supervisor.”

A mumbled _what?_ half forms on my lips, but Ryan doesn’t even give me the chance.

“He was forty-three,” He says quietly. “…but you didn’t say anything because you were scared your dad would lose his job and your family needed the money.”

“Stop it.” My voice can’t muster up much more than a whisper, old memories ripping into new and making tears sting my eyes painfully. It’s one of the few memories I really push down there- Mark, the night I lost my virginity, the day the little girl next door got shot. The few memories that I can’t stand to bring up.

“How did you know that?” I ask, as Ryan reaches for my face to wipe the tear that falls away. I turn my head, away from his embrace and he takes a step back, silent. “I’ve never told… _anybody_ \- not even Michael. Not a single fucking soul.” My hand grips the railing tighter than ever. The upset stings, viciously. It’s been years since I even thought about the incident- but the fact that Ryan brings it up so appropriately makes the anger I felt boil in my gut again. “Nobody.” I repeat. “So how the _fuck_ did you know.”

“You don’t know me, Ray.” He shakes his head, and for a second- it looks like he’s the one who wants to cry as if he deserves such a thing. “I see that now. But I know you- better than anybody else, better than Michael and Gavin and Geoff and Tina…” he trails off, and I find myself wondering how he knows these people- Geoff and Michael and Gavin I understand, but _Tina?_ How would they have _ever_ crossed paths.

When was the last time Tina and _I_ even crossed paths? I loved her, once upon a time- didn’t I?

“You don’t know me.” Ryan repeats. “And that fucking kills me- every single second of every day.”

Ryan must be a magician, because he reaches forwards and shoves me roughly off the false pier from four feet away without moving his arms. With a look alone, he sends me tumbling backwards. It feels oddly familiar, Ryan’s panicked expression as I fall- the drop is maybe six feet, at most. I loose most of my vision before I hit the ground.

Oddly enough, I have a stinging sense of _Déjà vu._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: What do you make of the whole Michael/Gavin thing? Why is Michael so careful around Ray?
> 
> Last update next saturday! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray finally figures out what it is he's been longing for.

Chapter Four

 

 

 

When you wake up- it isn’t in your bed. And you’re sure of it this time.

Well… eighty percent.

Quickly enough, probably a record for me recently, I realise that it’s Ryan’s apartment. It’s the shininess of everything that gives it away, from the gleam on the TV to the protective plastic sticker across the large mirror above the steel fireplace. It’s too high up to catch my reflection in from the couch, but I’m thankful. I probably look a mess.

“Ray!”

I turn my head, and Ryan rushes in from what I assume is the bathroom. In his hands, a tiny bottle of pills. For a second- I become excited. Last time I was here, Ryan had fucking _coke_ for Christ’s sake, who knows what he’s got in store for me this time. I definitely need something strong at the very least to dull the aching in the back of my head- now heightened from the burning sting of a graze I can feel around the area.

“Here.” Ryan tosses me the bottle and I catch it without blinking. Reading the label doesn’t make much sense- I’m not a fucking doctor. It’s only when I turn the bottle on its side and shake it to I notice the typewritten sticker.

_Signed by: Ryan Haywood._

_For: Ray Narvaez Jr._

It’s clear as day, my own name typed besides Ryan’s. Only then do I recognise the string of big words with too many X’s.

This is _my_ medication. Not my unofficial, personal medication- my _government mandated_ , _shrink approved_ pills. In Ryan’s apartment. Singed under his name.

“You had an episode, Ray.” Ryan says softly, making his way over to the couch. Awkwardly, he perches on the edge of a square white leather armchair. “You fell off the pier- you’re lucky you didn’t break anything. I was going to take you to the hospital- but I know you hate hospitals.”

“I don’t understand.” I groan, the throbbing from my head spreading across my shoulders, likely where I took the most severe impact from my little tumble off the pier. But then, that was all Ryan’s fault anyway.

“Take your meds.” Ryan stares at me, and for some reason my hands begin to move on their own accord. I can only put it down to _procedural memory_ , unscrewing the bottle, popping two with Ryan watching me- swallowing one with the other hid under my tongue to satisfy him. I’ve been taking them so long, I can dry swallow no problem.

Except- I never _ever_ take the meds my shrink gives me. They don’t mix well with morphine- but, fuck it- I’m not supposed to really be doing that either.

After swallowing the pill, I toss the closed bottle away from me, across the room without thinking. It feels wrong in my hands- foreign yet familiar. Slowly, my hand begins to shake as I desperately stuff my feet into my vans and pull my beanie tightly over my head. Ryan stands- as if he’s going to try and stop me, but I _must_ look crazy, because he doesn’t take another step forwards when I rush over to the front door.

However, I pause when my hand wraps around the door handle. “Tell me.” I ask, turning back again to face him. “Why do you have _my_ meds in _your_ name?”

For once, Ryan can’t trap me in that beautiful blue stare. He hangs his head, stares at the floor, grips the seat tightly with his hand.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles. “I just can’t tell you that.”

I close the door behind me.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Distraction is an addicts best friend. The _Ryan Haywood_ enigma only makes my brain hurt and my toes curl to think about, Michael Jones is a big fat liar, and the rest of my so-called friends… well- I don’t think I’ve seen them recently enough to show up out of the blue.

My mind lingers on Tina, but the memory is strangely painful. We parted on good terms, she moved to Texas and we promised to stay in touch. At first, we did. I’m not sure what happened after that.

Instead, I turn to my only other love. Ryan was right about one thing and that is that I _despise_ the movie Hackers. Unrealistic is an understatement. Mildly entertaining is a fair push. Instead of putting myself through that mediocrity, I pull out my desk chair and get settled in front of my computer screen.

It’s been a while, honestly. Too long to go without hacking into someone’s personal life and scrounging for details about them. Usually it’s the only thing on my mind, desperate to get home after work in order to find the truth about the newest employee or someone’s Tinder match. As hobbies go, it’s convenient enough.

However, with all this Ryan-Michael-Gavin-Morphine drama, I haven’t had much time to meet any new people. For the first half an hour, I stare at my desktop wallpaper, waiting for opportunity to strike me. My inbox is full of people requesting my services, but they’re all so _boring_ and predictable. It’s nothing another Ashley Madison leak wont uncover. I’ll put a good word in.

After a while, I google Ryan’s name and stare at the photo of him following his brief mention in the _Huffington Post_ article. How is it fair that he looks so good caught off guard? He’s not even looking at the camera, he’s on some kind of conference panel staring at his notes with thin rimmed metal glasses perched on the edge of his nose. I didn’t even know Ryan wore glasses- but then I suppose he does need them for reading and typing. And I didn’t even know that, until apparently now.

I click away from Ryan when my head throbs again, and for a second I consider delving into my medicine cabinet and actually taking my medication like Ryan wants me to. I dismiss the thought after a few minutes, and instead open the drawer to pull out the flash drive I’ve had collecting dust since the night of the Rooster Teeth hack.

_fun.haus_

It taunts me, the name. _funhaus._ ‘Haus’ implies a group of people- ‘fun’ implies a group of assholes. That’s about as far as I got in high school English lit.

I plug the programme in and immediately the same backdoor they used to creep into the Rooster Teeth servers is opened on my screen. The code runs in fast white lines, so quickly that after a while it starts to blur into colour until I have the chance to scroll up and read it.

The lines flash briefly.

 

 

_fun.haus. <access.denied>_

_fun.haus. <block.account.rnj160989>_

_fun.haus <resolving.roosterteeth-intl.com/login.server.srf?warwsignin.07=dlk>_

_fun.haus <connecting to roosterteeth.intl.com 77.209.347.21>_

_fun.haus <connection.success>_

 

 _They’re in the system_ , I think. _Like rats, they’ve crawled right back down the sewer and infiltrated the system._

My feet start running before the rest of my body. This isn’t a problem I can simply go to Michael or Geoff again- they’d probably straight up lose their jobs if they had to report another breech to the big guy again. I’m different from Geoff and Michael. I’m expendable.

The perfect fall guy.

Burnie Burns can yell and scream at me for his information being leaked again. It doesn’t matter. These days, words seem to wash over me like ocean breeze. Inside, I’m completely empty. I can’t feel unless it’s Ryan Haywood’s touch.

Once again, I sprint through the Rooster Teeth buildings without thinking. It’s unnerving, how so few visits could’ve engrained the floor plan of the whole building. I know my way around the purposely slow elevator into the maintenance stairs well enough to sprint straight up to Burnie’s office through the janitor’s office, past the secretary who yells my name and tells me he’s in a meeting.

Fuck a meeting. This I think is probably much more important. I can’t disable _fun.haus_ until I’m directly connected to the servers out in Austin and I can’t do that without Burnie’s permission nor without his keys to the company jet.

His meeting can wait.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I bust into the office of Michael. J Burns with equal fervour and intensity of a liberated man from his imprisonment. Burnie’s door isn’t even locked, so when I push it open and ten staring faces turn around to greet me I don’t know why they even look so surprised.

Before I open my mouth, my eyes are drawn to the orange card Burnie is stood next to, standing over the seated men with a laser pointed and a power-point presentation. An orange circle with black initials on the inside reading FH. Underneath, in block orange capitals:

 _FUNHAUS_.

“There…” My words are half escaped from my mouth, but the presentation has thrown me off completely. Burnie stares and the eight sitting around the table stare and the man with the long hair and the thick notepad sitting behind the computer stares.

“There was a breech.” I hold my laptop over my head, but my face contorts to a frown. “I… funhaus. Funhaus breeched your-”

Word escape me then as Burnie Burns- president of the entire company shifts awkwardly on his feet and breaks stare, glancing down to his shoes and then, away, to the wall.

“You should go.” He looks back to the seven sitting men and one woman. They all continue to stare at me with passive, almost panicked expressions before awkwardly shuffling to stand and gather their things and one by one file out of the office, brushing past me without a word.

Burnie tenses and then, the man with the longer hair shuts the laptop and unplugs the HDMI, gathering his things and heading back towards the door.

“Later Jon.” Burnie mumbles. “We’ll regroup at a later date.”

“I understand.” Jon replies, but he doesn’t look away from me until he has stepped completely out the office and the door closes with a click behind me. My head hurts- more than ever really, but I ignore it to study the look on Burnie’s face. Never have I seen someone quite so collected in themselves be speechless.

“What’s going on.” I swallow, looking past Burnie to eye the funhaus logo behind him. “Funhaus- what is this?”

“Funhaus are… a subdivision of Rooster Teeth. They’ve been working with us for about a year.”

My body stiffens, lip curling on its own accord into an angry snarl. I’ve struggled recently with controlling my emotions and today is no different. Suddenly, I imagine what my fingers would look like jammed against Burnie Burn’s throat.

“But…” I can see my body shaking, but I can’t actually _feel_ it. Inside, I am made completely of led and nothing else. I don’t move, don’t feel. Not like the others. “They _hacked_ you.” I tell him.

Then Burnie does that _Burnie_ thing. The tilt of the head, narrowed eyes behind square glasses and the hands, tucked tightly into the trouser pockets before he wanders over to his desk and leans against the edge, drawing his hand back up from his hips to fold over his chest. _What does that mean_? Lingers on his tongue, but I watch him swallow it.

“No.” He says instead. “They didn’t.”

“Yeah, they did.” My fists clench and my teeth grind together almost painfully. A mile a minute, my brain chants to itself. _I don’t understand I don’t understand **I** **don’t** **understand**_. Instead of voicing these thoughts, I try and focus on what parts I do understand, or at least- the parts I _thought_ I understood until now. “They hacked you and I stopped them-” I tell him- perhaps myself too. Burnie cuts me off.

“ _You_ hacked us, Ray. You hacked us and then flew out with Geoff to save the day.” He explains. “Funhaus were mid-way through cleaning up the mess you made and tightening our security from you, when you shut them out. It took us _weeks_ to get them back online.”

“But I don’t understand?” I finally say. “I didn’t-”

“You did.” Burnie walks around his desk with a sigh and shifts through his drawer before pulling out a disk. I watch as he slides it across the desk towards me, and even from afar I can make out the writing clear as day. Blank white disk, _BROWNMAN_ in a black sharpie scrawl. “Here’s the code you used to do it. Funhaus managed to finally de-encrypt it and your tag is all over it. _Brownman_.” Burnie tells me, like the disappointed father I never had.

“But-”

“-Lucky for you, we’re not going to the police.”

“-How did you know that I’m _Brownman?_ ”

I focus on the real issue. My job is nothing- the cops are easy to avoid. I reroute my subnet to the middle of nowhere, northern Europe. I’m untraceable- and the New York cyber-crime division isn’t exactly overflowing with agents of a high enough calibre to even touch me.

“You told me.” Says a voice. I hadn’t even realised Geoff was in the room, but he is- clear as day. He steps from the shadows like a villain in a play and approaches the desk with the same _dad_ face Burnie gives me as I dare to step forwards once, towards them both.

“No.” I shake my head, laugh even- spitefully. As if _I_ would ever be as careless to share that information with Geoff. My identity is secret for a reason. I would never be so completely careless. “When would _I_ ever tell you that?”

Geoff doesn’t respond. Burnie looks at me, but Geoff looks at the door and I watch as he slips his phone into his pocket. His stare from the door doesn’t break, so I turn just in time to see Michael through the glass, a panicked expression washed over his pale face as he enters.

“I came as soon as I could!” he wheezes.

“What the _fuck_!” I yell sharply, turning back to Geoff. “How did you know? Tell me!”

“You told me.” Geoff says quietly. I shake my head again, but this time faster and surprisingly, more tearfully. Michael approaches from behind me, but keeps himself at a safe distance. Even he knows better than to try and lay a single hand on me right about now.

“You told him three years ago Ray.” Michael explains. “You told us all.” He nods, clearly referring to both Geoff and Burnie. But it doesn’t make any sense- because telling Michael is one thing. That’s understandable, even though I have yet to do it. Telling my boss and the boss a million leagues above him- that’s _foolish_ to even imagine.

“I _don’t_ understand-” I repeat, and it feels tedious to say. The past few weeks, months, days, it’s been a mantra in my mind. Everything a mystery and nothing is ever explained. All I crave and all I fear is the answer to the questions I don’t dare to ask. “Why would I…” I trail off, take a breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth- just as the shrink said. The last thing I need is to become a blabbering mess of tears and anxiety. The shakes have already started but then- that could just be the morphine withdrawal. It’s hard to differentiate between the two because the cravings can cause anxiety and anxiety can cause the cravings.

“Why would I hack Rooster Teeth?” I ask incredulously,

“Funny, we were wondering the same thing.” Burnie leafs through a few pieces of paper on his desk. They’re all labelled _FUNHAUS_ and I wonder how I hadn’t noticed them before. “Turns out,” he reads. “the bug you created was scanning our database- you were farming out servers for information.”

“Information?” I scoff. Michael’s eyes burn into the back of my skull, but I ignore them.

“Yes, information.” Burnie looks from the notes, up to Geoff, behind to Michael and then, finally, back to me. “Information on your ex, Ryan Haywood.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

My shoes squeak loudly against the linoleum flooring of the bathroom as I skid towards the nearest sink, almost falling as my body convulses and I grab onto the porcelain for support. I at least have the decency to run the tap before chucking up the little food I had stored in my stomach, mixed with bile and the tiniest speck of blood. It splatters disgustingly against the sink but the water washes most of it away quickly enough to hide the evidence before Michael bursts in, only a few steps behind me.

Still, I must look a mess, dragging my wet hands over my face in an attempt to look a little more alive. When I make eye contact with my own reflection, it reminds me painfully just how bad I look. Dry flaky skin, red blotchy eyes. I probably looked insane, rushing into Burnie Burns office waving my laptop in my hand.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the flash drive labelled _fun.haus_. Without thinking, I throw it viciously against the glass of the mirror until it shatters, catching eyes with the reflection of Michael standing silently behind me.

“Ray, look.” He reaches out. “I can explain.”

I wipe my mouth on the corner of my hoodie, and glare at the splinter of him I can make out in the broken reflection.

“Don’t bother.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

To be honest, I’m still iffy about the subway. All the events that have unfolded recently (extremely recently) are overwhelming enough, and slowly I think I’ve began to associate them with the subway. I met Ryan on the subway.

Or did I?

Maybe I met Ryan Haywood when Michael dragged me to a company party. Maybe Ryan was just transferring to our tech division. Maybe Ryan flirted with me and bought me soft drinks and asked me out on a date six months later after our constant sexual tension and extended friendship ground Michael and Gavin down. Did I say yes? You probably did. I would’ve certainly said no.

Ryan Haywood. My _ex._

Ex- _what_ exactly, I’m not sure about. Burnie wasn’t specific. I’m kind of glad that Burnie wasn’t specific. As I walk home through the city in a sceptical trudge, the storm clouds roll across the sky and almost ceremoniously the rain pours down. This isn’t normal rain- this like movie rain, pouring within an instant, drenching everything in sight. The other people- _prepared_ , pull out their umbrellas and their parkers and walk with a little speed in their step. I do none of these things.

I deserve it, probably. I hacked into Rooster Teeth servers for information about my ex and I don’t even remember it. This goes past the point of a possibly drug-fuelled decision. This is different.

I deserve it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Dahlia isn’t there for once, paranoid lurking around the hallway waiting for me. However, my apartment door is cracked open and the light inside is switched on. I know I left in a haste, but a lifetime of growing up in Queens taught me very quickly how to lock my door- no matter what the circumstances.

Gavin has a key, apparently. Is that something else I did and never remembered? Probably.

“Oh Ray.” He frowns, standing awkwardly as my sodden form drags itself through the door. “Come here.” He holds his arms open, and despite every though I have screaming that he _probably knows_ _too_ I rush straight into his arms and allow him to hold me tightly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Ryan and I started dating three and a half years ago.

The whole shebang, really. Dinners, movies, apartment, _house_. We were a few years away from picket fence, two point five kids and a dog. Then, in the bitter winter a year and a half ago, we argued. We didn’t argue often, but we argued that night and that was all that matters, I suppose. Ryan and I argued and I fell from the second story of our house. The thick Long Island snow broke most of my fall, apparently, but that’s why my wrist aches when I type for too long and I have an ugly scar on my left calf.

Aside from a broken wrist and slashed leg, I came out fairly unscathed. Or so they thought. Apparently, the fall knocked around a bunch of complicated sections of my brain and my body shut itself down into a coma to cope. Almost three months later, I woke up with Michael at my side (the one day Ryan decided to sleep in, typical.) and had no recollection whatsoever of any of my life from the moment mine and Ryan’s eyes had met for the first time.

“It’s terribly uncommon.” Gavin explains to me, but his voice buzzes like static as I sit stock still in the middle of the couch. “Doctors had no idea what to make of it. Didn’t know if you’d get it back or not- but you’ve been remembering stuff, haven’t you? That’s why you’ve been so… out of sorts recently, right?”

“I knew he should’ve stayed away from Ryan.” Michael says angrily. “Ryan’s fucking melted his brain and now, who knows what damage there is. We need to take him to the hospital, Gav.”

“I’m not going to the hospital.” I say quietly. “You can’t make me.”

“I have sat here for over a year by your side, Ray. I’ve watched you almost die in my arms _twice_ and I _won’t_ let it happen again because Ryan got fucking _sentimental_.”

I look up to face him, and my lips set into a frown. “What do you mean, twice?”

Michael stills. Suddenly, I think I remember what he and Gavin mean when they talk about ‘last time’.

Losing two years of your memory is a strange ordeal, especially to your body. You quit drugs to be with Ryan, but I didn’t fucking know that- did I? I went back to my normal dosage, double even what I take now and nearly sent myself straight back into a coma barely three months since I’d woken up. The morph was cut badly and my memory got worse, so Michael and Gavin took over my supply because I refused to stop.

How could I have not even remembered overdosing the first time? It was much worse than the event that took place a not so long ago. I needed more than a bath and some sleep to get through that one.

“Ryan got promoted to exec and… you had no idea who he was so- he stayed away.” Gavin bites his lip nervously and glances up at Michael, who paces the room angrily. “It hurt but… he had to stay away. We didn’t want to risk fucking up your brain more, Ray.”

I stand.

“Look, don’t be mad!” Michael says defensively, subconsciously straightening his back and shifting his feet. As if I would ever be able to take Michael Jones. How humorous.

“I need to see Ryan.” I rub my eyes. Was I crying before? Probably. My only thoughts revolve around Ryan Haywood, and how maybe it isn’t so strange when his touch feels like heaven on my skin. I’m not even angry at Michael and Gavin- my fucked-up brain doesn’t quite have the energy for it.

“Go.” Gavin says, pulling Michael away by the hand before he has a chance to consider stopping me. “Go and see him."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The rain’s just about over by the time I reach Ryan’s place, but my skin is damp with sweat and dirty rainwater as I stand, breath heaving outside his door. My hoodie is tied around my waist, skinny arms bared to the air conditioned corridors without care. The concierge gave me the strangest stare I’ve ever received.

Ryan looks concerned the moment he opens the door, but I tear my eyes from his face because it hurts to look knowing what I know. It’s like I’m an old hard drive with a thousand files stored, but I’m hopelessly corrupted. There’s no way to access them and every time I try- I crash.

“Michael already called me.” Ryan says awkwardly, hovering around his couch as I make my way slowly into the apartment. His blue eyes stare at my sodden, shaking torso. “I’ll get you a shirt.”

“I don’t want a fucking shirt.” I snap and he stops turning back to face me again. “Michael and Gavin told me everything and I’m fucking freaking out because it… I don’t know- it makes sense, okay?” I huff and shrug and rub my hands over my cold arms frantically. Ryan doesn’t move, doesn’t tear his eyes away and for the first time, I understand why he looks at me like I’m some sort of ghost.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks me. I glare.

“Obviously.”

“Right.” He nods, awkwardly and takes a hesitant step forwards. He doesn’t move much further, keeping a safe distance from me like a wild animal on safari. Instead, he turns to the sleek bookshelf stood against the wall and grabs a printed photo from the crack between two books. “Here.”

The photo is of me, standing tucked under Ryan’s arm with comedic large glasses shaped by the numbers _2014_. Michael and Gavin are on the other side of us with drinks and party hats and horns. I spot Geoff at the edge of the photo- his face turned in conversation with someone else out of frame so it isn’t in view of the camera, but I’d recognise those tattoos anywhere. Even Jack is there, just behind Michael with a giant grin on his face.

“Don’t be upset.”

I look up, and my vision of Ryan is blurred. That’s when I realise that I’m crying and hastily, I stuff the photo into my back pocket and wipe my eyes against my wrists.

“Shut up. I’m not.”

“Ray.” Ryan sighs, and the tone of his voice sounds fond but he doesn’t smile. “Talk to me.”

“Huh.” I laugh, tearfully. “It’s a bit of a strange situation. But I suppose it makes sense- you know,” I sniff. “Every time I’m with you it feels like we know each other and it feels so- like- _natural_. But then, it’s the bits in between that I can’t figure out and they don’t make sense because I don’t understand what’s real and what’s forgotten.”

“I can’t give you your memories back, Ray.” Ryan sighs, moving forwards a little more confidently to touch my shoulder gently with his hand. “But I can tell you how you lost them, if you want.”

I watch Ryan’s hand intently as it strokes down from my shoulder, briefly pausing on the left side of my chest before retreating back to Ryan’s pocket. His touch sets me on fire and I haven’t figured out if I like it yet, so instead, I wordlessly nod.

“We argued,” Ryan explains, running his hands over his tired skin. Then, I realise that Ryan looks about as shitty as I do right now. We match- down to the flaky skin and the dead, sunken eyes and suddenly- I wonder if Ryan can feel anymore either.

 “We didn’t argue often but that night we did. It was about…” he hesitates, bites his lip and glances at the ceiling briefly. That’s Ryan’s tell for being a dirty liar. “Your past.” He settles on, eventually. Whatever it really was- it’s sensitive, that’s obvious. Maybe he hopes that I won’t remember. “It was all my fault anyhow. We argued and you… fell- trying to back away from me you just fell and I had to watch you fall. It was awful.” He shakes his head, rubbing at his bloodshot eyes. “It was all my fault,” he says, after a long pause. “Your brain got… damaged and it was my fault. So I chose to distance myself and stay well away so I wouldn’t fuck your life up a second time around.”

Ryan looks sincere. His eyes are all teary and longing when they look at me and he stands still, rather than awkwardly shifting like he does when he lies. But somehow- part of the story still doesn’t make sense to me.

“So why come back at all?” I ask. “When you bumped into me that night on the subway- why not turn around and keep walking?”

Ryan takes in a long, deep breath. For the first time, he stares at me, dead in the eyes and I don’t desperately look away. I hold his wet gaze and neither of us blink.

“When I said sorry and you turned around Ray, I just couldn’t help myself.” Ryan says, and I know he’s sincere by the bite in his words and the grip of his fist. “I hadn’t seen you in… _so_ _long_ and I _saw_ …” he trails off, sniffing once and tucking a lose strand of hair behind his ear. Ryan’s hair used to be so beautiful, I remember. Long and thick and a rich brown but now- it’s dead and greasy and lifeless. There’s even the tiniest glint of grey at one side by his ear, and it make his eyes sparkle even through the tears. “I thought I saw in your eyes that you really recognised me and I just had to try because even after all this time I _still_ love you.”

Ryan tells me he loves me and my only response is to turn around, away from him, and run straight back out of the apartment.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

I don’t run all the way home.

My body is exhausted from endless weeks of drugs and withdrawal and staring at computer screens. I don’t exercise- not that I ever really have done- but I also don’t eat enough to create the energy to exercise. Half of what I eat comes back up and the other half is bland and tasteless so I don’t have much of an appetite. It’s a wonder really that I’m still alive at all.

I walk, damp as the light dusting of rain fades out back to my apartment and the background noise of the city fades away, giving my mind enough space to wander. I think of Ryan, or try to. I crave the memories that I don’t remember missing and miss the touch I never knew I craved.

In my head, through the pictures of Ryan’s face; his eyes when they were blue and glowing and his hair when it caught the sunlight and almost looked blonde- there’s something else. It’s a box, small and faded green with ragged cardboard corners and sloppy blue writing across the lid. Before I realise it, I’m already home- apartment devoid of Gavin and Michael’s lurking prescience at last. The New York City sunset creeps through the open window as I tear my bedroom apart, rifling through every drawer and every corner for this box that I can’t seem to get out of my head.

It’s only when I drop to my knees, laid with my back pressed against the cool wall and my knees hugged to my chest in tearful frustration that I spot it.

Under the bed, gathering dust sits an A-4 sized, foil wrapped cardboard box. It’s old enough, a few years probably with an emerald coloured sheen and my own handwriting written in blue.

_Photos_

I reach under the bed, coughing through the dust and the dead skin until I can reach it. I pull it up, set it on the bed and clamber up to look through it. My hands shake slightly as I lift the lid, and I see that whatever is inside is blanketed with a white sheet of paper.

 _Ray_ , Michael’s handwriting reads. _If you’re reading this, you found it. If you found it, you’re remembering things again. Or at least- I hope you are. If you have no idea what any of this is about call me RIGHT NOW_.

_Michael x_

I frown, tossing the paper aside confusedly. How long has this mystery box been laying underneath my bed without me knowing? Sitting idle whilst I sleep, hiding the key to my missing mind like the fucking holy grail. I had always been so close to it, but I’d never even thought to look. Michael has always been good at hiding things in plain sight.

Pictures, moments, key chains from various places, postcards from countries and states around the world. String bracelets and gag gifts like novelty condoms and plastic flashing rings. On the surface, it’s a box of two-dollar garbage hoarded for a few years.

To me- it’s a doorway.

The first thing I really pick up and inspect is a post card from Washington DC, a faded image of the Whitehouse blaring at me in stark white. I turn it over and Ryan’s words glare at me. I don’t read much past _I miss you_ before that same spot in the back of my head starts to ache. I’d always thought it was just a stupid continuous migraine, but now- I start to wonder if maybe it has more to do with the crippling retroactive amnesia that I apparently suffer from.

It’s strange, remembering but also not remembering. I had no idea I had amnesia until right now. I had no idea that there were two years of my life that never happened. Now, I do- and it feels as if I always have. The photos rush my brain in a blur, so many pictures of me and Ryan in this seemingly perfect life, beaming like kids at a fucking playground make it all hurt worse.

Because I do still love him. Or at least- I remember the way it feels to.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

On the eighteenth call from Michael I stand suddenly and hurtle my cell phone out of the window. It falls, like I did- down into the street below and shatters into pieces. I don’t care- I’ve hardly become attached to it like everyone else in the world. Maybe it’s because technologically I’m two years behind or maybe it’s because I have nobody to keep constant contact with. It’s like I’m desperately trying to dive into the future but my body and my spirit can’t catch up. Suddenly, it makes sense why for the last year and a half all I’ve felt is out of place in the world, in my job, with my friends. Everyone moved on whilst I was stuck. Geoff started smoking dope in the office, Burnie knew about my less than legal extracurricular activities, Michael and Gavin started a relationship. Everyone evolved.

I remained behind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

You wake up to the subway announcer’s distorted murmuring. Whatever the stop is, you clearly recognise it. My feet hit the concrete floor of the platform and the train rushes behind me in a blur. I walk, but you guide me. My feet move on your accord, navigating through dark and suburban streets without hesitation. My brain is inactive, but everywhere I look it feels like it’s on fire.

The house is probably about twenty minutes around the corner from the house I grew up in once we made it out of Queens. If that’s supposed to comfort me, it doesn’t. The house is big enough, but not too much for two people to live in comfortably together. Not too tall, not too wide. A neat little red door with the number _16_ glinting in the streetlight.

Before I stomach the courage to step on the driveway, the door swings open and Ryan steps out. He looks for comfortable here than he ever did in his apartment. Perhaps that’s why the city skyscraper felt so unlike a home when I went there. It isn’t lived-in because Ryan doesn’t live in it.

Ryan in the suit with the briefcase and the expensive shoes and expenditure reports dwells in the skyscraper. The other Ryan- _my_ Ryan lives here, in worn denim jeans and a dark grey t-shirt and busted old sneakers. He stalks the length of the driveway and I almost make it far enough to meet him halfway.

“How’d you know I’d come here?” I ask quietly. Ryan smiles.

“Because I know you, Ray.” He says fondly, like it’s already an old joke between us. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time.”

When I look at Ryan, for the first time- my head doesn’t throb. My eyes drift at the same time as his, up to the second story window of our bedroom. I remember the argument now- after I’d been so good and quit drugs (or narcotics, at least. Weed didn’t count. Obviously) I’d given into the temptation and gone back on a now-and-then, need-to-know basis. Ryan certainly didn’t need to know.

Ryan found out.

It was rare that Ryan would raise his voice. I was always yelling, whether we were arguing or joking or talking cuddled in bed, laughing on a cold morning. Ryan never shouted- but this day he did. Ryan got angry and I got defensive and that made him worse and that then made me worse. I reached out and shoved him, fiercely. I was off my face at the time, but even still I knew it was wrong and I still did it. I was legitimately angry enough to hurt him, but I’m tiny and Ryan is built like a good southern country farm-boy. I pushed with force and he barely stumbled. He shoved my chest gently away from him and I was the one to lose my footing. I was the one to stumble backwards.

I remember reaching out and trying to grab at him. But it was too late, I was already sailing out of the window. Ryan’s face wasn’t red with anger when I fell. It was flushed with panic and complete fear as I floated through the air like I was a tiny picture in Gavin’s expensive camera. Then I hit the snow, and my vision died.

The memory is still blurry and it still hurts to think about. At first, I think it’s that sappy, emotional kind of hurt. I lost the love of my life to some morphine and a second story window and now it hurts to think about.

It isn’t that kind of hurt. My head throbs and slowly, my eyes begin to narrow into a wince.

“It wasn’t your fault.” I ignore the pain, and look back between the window and Ryan. “It was just an accident.”

“What?” Ryan’s eyebrows raise, and he steps forwards. For a second, he reaches out to hold my face, but settles at the shoulders last minute. “Do you…” I don’t look back up at him. “Do you remember it, Ray?”

Shrugging him off, I step backwards. Ryan watches me with wild, concerned eyes as I rub my hands into my hair and my eyes slowly pinch closed.

“I thought it was just a dream but…. But it isn’t oh god- it’s fucking… I’m going insane- oh God, it hurts Ryan, fucking hell.” I can’t see Ryan anymore. I can only see the bedroom, the window. The tiny marks on the walls and the ceilings from stupid memories like when we dropped the TV or when Ryan threw a knife in the wall at a picture of Gavin. I stumble, hot and cold at the same time and my knees hit the hard floor of the driveway.

I’m down for maybe a second or two when I feel strong arms tuck underneath me, lifting me off the ground completely. Ryan’s face is almost as scared as it was the day of the accident, as he lifts me into his chest and starts into the house, muttering something soothing and frightened into my ear.

 “Make it stop, Ryan.” I groan, painfully. “I don’t want to remember.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ryan gives me a run-down of what happened when I finally stumble mentally back into consciousness. I was fitting, pretty badly. Foaming at the mouth- whole nine yards. He was pretty close to calling an ambulance, but I hate hospitals so he didn’t. He stuffed a few of my pills down my mouth once my body stopped convulsing and suddenly I was fine, sleeping as gently as a baby lamb on the comfy fabric couch we shared for almost two years.

I lay silently on the couch as Ryan sits on the armchair, watching me intently. I don’t look at him. Instead, my gaze flies to the ceiling and my mind begins to wander, for the first time in a long time. I probe my memories- as gently as I can- and all I can see is _him_.

It’s less of the big moments and more of the little things. Sharing an ice cream sundae on a Thursday lunch break, just because we could. Going to the movies on the occasional Sunday to see something new. Making Ryan drink monster because it was funny to watch his face screw up in disgust. Ryan fucking with me by hiding my shit all over the apartment until I found my sneakers with a tiny note written inside them, black ink bleeding into the white fabric.

_I love you_

I shake my shoe off then and there, peeling the tongue back to check. The notes still there, clear as day. All these tiny things that I didn’t notice until right now. Michael’s DVD Boxset of the walking dead is sitting underneath the TV. Gavin’s stupid _Does It Smell Like Cum In Here?_ T-shirt is left hanging in the closet in our bedroom after I borrowed it that one time for a party.

How could I have been so careless as to forget the one person who cared about me the most? After all this time- how could I have been blind enough not to recognise Ryan and the way it felt when he touched me?

“I’m sorry- you probably hate me.” Ryan mutters as I slip my shoe back on and sit up on the couch. Then, he shakes his head, and lets out a short fragile sigh. He doesn’t say anything else, so I reply without thinking.

“I love you, you _idiot_.” I shake my head. Ryan looks up as soon as I say it, head snapping so viciously it’s a wonder he doesn’t break his neck. I don’t look over. “It was an accident and I love you.” I mutter, more to myself than him. It’s enough though, and I hear him sniff quietly.

Ryan never cries, but I look over to him and my heart breaks at the sight.

“Why couldn’t I remember how much I love you?”

How he makes it over to the couch without my realising must be sorcery. One minute I’m watching him crumble and the next he’s sat beside me, hugging me fiercely with his face buried into my neck. Ryan holds me like if he lets go, even for a minute- I’ll disappear, and he has every fucking right to.

“I’m so sorry.” Ryan says again, rocking us both slowly. We’ve pulled out of the tight hug a little, but remain pressed together, my forehead rested against his cheek. “I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“I’m the one that’s sorry.” I reply. “I forgot _everything_.” He sighs, practically into my ear and a shiver runs down my body. It’s a familiar feeling, Ryan’s hot breath in my ear and against my neck. I’ve felt it a thousand times, maybe even more.

“Ryan…” I breathe, pulling back slightly to look him in the eyes. “I-I think I really do remember you.”

It’s like a rush, when Ryan asks me _are you sure?_ The words flow like water through a creek- it’s _everything_ , or near enough. Tiny doors and windows unlocking and swinging open and shut like a saloon in my brain, live and in technicolour.

I met Ryan in the summer of 2012.

It was a company party- just when he had started work with us, over at AH. Ryan was the tech guy- not all big time like he is now. He was a few pounds heavier and a little less put-together but I liked him anyway. He started off quiet, but soon enough we saw the real him. He had a dark sense of humour and a big quiet personality. Ryan was everything and nothing at the same. Gavin was scared of him. I loved him.

I quit drugs for him- but more importantly, I quit _Brownman_ for him. I didn’t hack anymore- hacking was something to pass the time when I was lonely. When me and Ryan moved into our first apartment together, I didn’t need to be lonely anymore. I didn’t have the time to be a criminal, and now- I had a weakness if it all went to shit.

So I left it all behind. All for him.

We rarely argued. We were fucking _Ryan and Ray_ \- The _R’n’R Connection_. Unbreakable.

But then, ever perfect couple have their rough patches. When me and Ryan argued it either had to two with two things. My past, or jealously. Ryan was a very oblivious guy, especially when it came to women. He was constantly flirted with, and he would go along with it completely without realising what he was doing. That made me upset, and he would get defensive and bring up drugs or bring up hacking.

We were usually over it by the next morning.

The night of the accident in December 2014, it was both. I started using, Ryan found out when I came home high out of my mind. I’d over done it- I hadn’t been careful. He wanted me to do a fucking _drug test_ and send me to rehab but I refused. I hate hospitals- I would never forgive him if he had me put in one.

Ryan came for me where he thought it world hurt but I stuck back twice as hard and three times as viciously. He was working his way up the RT corporate ladder at the time after out-growing his tiny office in AH. He had his own secretary now- a pretty girl a year or two older than me with brightly coloured hair and glasses and a big shiny white smile who he was fond of. She flirted with Ryan like she flirted with everyone- carelessly and with ease. Ryan flirted back without thinking, and I watched.

When we did argue, Ryan and I- it would get heated. I shoved Ryan and he shoved back and then I went out the window. It was all over the same stuck record of disputes. Ryan was concerned for my health and I was pathetically insecure that one day, despite everything we’d built together, he’d just up and leave me for somebody better.

How could I have ever been so stupid? To be jealous of some girl when Ryan loved me so unconditionally and with absolutely everything he had? Even now as we sit together and his fingers creep into mine, locking together, I wonder how I ever could’ve forgotten something so effortlessly beautiful.

We sit together in a house that feels like a home. The night is long set in and the TV shines in the background. Neither of us watch, instead we watch each other with hesitant smiles. It’s like a first date in tenth grade without the awkward boners.

“This is your favourite movie.” I say suddenly, when I catch the TV in the corner of my eye. _Pulp_ _Fiction_ is on, playing in the background quietly and Ryan told me he liked it because it didn’t make any sense. Ryan looks up. “I remember…” I sit up frowning at the screen as the images come rushing back. “This is the first R-Rated movie you ever saw in a theatre. On our one-year anniversary I bought tickets to go see it at a drive in theatre but- instead of paying attention I just tried to make out with you the whole night.”

I laugh, but Ryan stays quiet. His hand squeezes mine, catching my attention.

“You really remember all that?” he asks. I grin.

“I told a joke about Tarantino’s foot fetish and you laughed your ass off even though it wasn’t that funny. You teared up when Vince left Mia at her house and I teased you about it the whole night-”

“-you can stop if it hurts.” He interrupts me, moving his hand up to my shoulder carefully. I shrug him off.

“I can’t stop now, Ryan!” I say, excitedly. “And I won’t stop- not until I can remember everything.”

“Ray, stop or you’ll end up doing more damage than good.” He snaps. “You don’t have to remember every excruciating detail of our time together. Arguably what made it so special to me was the fact that I had to miss it, terribly. I had to know that I could never experience it again.”

He rubs up and down my arm softly, but we’re not on the same page. It’s like we’re reading the same story- I’m just way too many chapters behind to catch up.

“…and that’s what makes this feel so good.” He says. He’s got his puppy dog eyes on.

He wants me to stop.

“But now… I remember so you can experience it again. Babe-”

Ryan grits his teeth, and the sound alone cuts me off completely. After an awkward pause, he says; “You used to call me _babe_ when we first started dating. I always hated it so after a while you stopped.”

“I’m sorry- _Rye_ , I’ll get better.” I promise. “I’ll take my meds and-”

“Ray, you don’t understand.” Ryan snaps again. I flinch, visibly as he does so and he sighs deeply, shifting barely a centimetre away from me on the couch. It’s enough to make the message clear though, as he pulls at the thinning front of his hair agitatedly.

“What?”

“You don’t understand.” He repeats with a sigh, leaning back against the couch and looking at me. “There is no getting better from this, Ray. No matter how much I still love you, you’re _not_ my Ray who took me to a drive in movie even though you couldn’t drive.” he laughs, but it there’s no joy in it. Only sadness, and longing and disappointment. All I can think is one thing:

He doesn’t think I’m good enough for him.

“Ryan, I-”

“That version of Ray- my Ray who I got to know for three whole years, he’s dead and has not coming back.” Ryan says very suddenly. His voice doesn’t shake or quiver and his back straightens. He’s serious, deadly so- and my heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach.

“You don’t want me.” I say.

There’s a long pause. Too long. Ryan doesn’t look at me until I’m about to get up and run out of the room, and then, he chooses to reach out and grab my wrist, shackling me back to the couch.

“I didn’t say that.” He says. “I just don’t want _him_.” He then nods across the room to a photo that I hadn’t noticed. “Not anymore.”

The silver frame gleams over a picture of me- just me- grinning widely in a park of some kind. I’m wearing clothes I don’t recognise; with a haircut I would never get- grinning in a photo that I might never remember smiling for.

For the first time, I wonder who this _old_ Ray was, and if he was anything like myself at all.

“But… we’re the same.” I tell Ryan. I tell myself. I think we both need to hear it- but Ryan shakes his head tiredly.

“I am not the same Ryan and you are absolutely not the same Ray.” He tells me. I look again at the photo and then, back to Ryan. Ryan with his duller eyes and his lifeless hair and his flaky skin and his tired sighing. Perhaps he struggled to evolve with the times as well.

“Those two died in the snow of December 2014 and they’re _not_ coming back.” He continues, taking my hand in his and holding it gently. “And that’s okay, because it means that I get to do it _all_ over again. I get to fall in love with you for the second time. Not many people get that opportunity.”

I choose to say nothing. I silently agree with him by laying against his chest on the couch until I can hear his steady heartbeat. It all feels so strange, and frightening- yet at the same time there’s the layers of familiarity and comfort that comes from the smell of Ryan’s T-shirt and the warmth of his skin. This isn’t going to be easy, falling in love again and I know that- we both do.

Looking at Ryan, I’m pretty sure it’s worth it. Because- I realise- I’m not the only one who got hurt in the accident. I got to live an entire year of blissful ignorance, forgetting the pain with drugs and illegal online endeavours. I went back to a life that sure- wasn’t particular healthy, but it didn’t hurt either. It was safe and familiar and it didn’t hurt- not at first.

Ryan had to _live_ with it.

Ryan had to flit between this big empty house and his cold empty apartment and _live on_ with the pain and the guilt and the sadness. It’s worse than having the one you love die- when someone’s dead and buried, you know they’re gone for good. Ryan must’ve spent countless evenings and days scanning New York City for the chance that he would catch sight of me, just to know if I was still breathing. I was always out there, just within touching distance without the care to look back.

Things probably weren’t as easy for Ryan, living with the guilt and likely blaming himself. Ryan likes to pin all the blame on himself when things go horribly wrong. I don’t know how I know this about him, but I do. Ryan always blames himself, and if nobody stops him he only ends up hurting himself the most. For a year and three months exactly- Ryan hurt himself and he didn’t have me to help when he needed me.

But now? I intend to make it all up and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End, but not the end. Up next week: Epilogue (because i couldn't bear to just leave it like that, could i?)


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End

 

 

_Epilogue_

 

 

 

Having a first date over three years into your relationship is anything but surprising for a couple like Ryan and I.

You’d probably be severely awkward in the weeks following the revelation of forgetting almost an entire two years of your life and that in fact, you were in a fairly successful, loving relationship with another person who didn’t think you were a complete asshole. You’d probably have ignored calls and texted back late and done a few lines of coke before allowing Michael to drop you off in front of a semi-fancy restaurant just outside the centre of the city.

But you are not I and I am not you. Or at least, I’m not you anymore.

Ryan sits opposite me with the smallest smile on his face, but it speaks more than a thousand words. He doesn’t need to be sitting there, grinning like a maniac and gushing about how fucking _great_ everything is now. All Ryan has to do is occasionally look over the menu at me and give that tiny, subtle little smirk that makes his eyes shine under the spotlights and I know, straight away, exactly what he is thinking.

We know each other well enough to be able to read the other at the drop of a hat, so when I start fiddling with my uncomfortably sleek new IPhone that Gavin bought for me, twisting and turning it between my fingers- Ryan’s eyes are drawn over to it immediately.

“What is it?” he asks. “What’s wrong with your phone?”

“It’s nothing.” I shrug, looking away as if I could ever be casual under Ryan’s questioning gaze. He leans across the table, just slightly with a look in his eyes as if to say _I know you better than that._ I realise quickly that it’s the same look he’s been giving me for the past few months, long before I even knew who he was again.

“I was getting calls.” I confess. “Before I… started remembering, I was getting calls from this private number and… I don’t know- I guess some dumb part of me really hoped that they were from you.”

Ryan’s face drops into a frown and he stares down at my phone. “Show me.” He asks, and I comply- unlocking the phone quickly and opening the call log before sliding it across the table towards him.

“Private number.” He reads, narrowing his eyes. “Four missed calls in the last week.”

A part of me is relieved that it isn’t just another fucking delusion of mine. Just another stupid false truth that I’d been seeing over and over again, crutching all my hope on without knowledge of what or who I was hoping for. Maybe I’m not crazy- or at least, not completely. Because Ryan can see it too.

“Ray?” I look up, clearly too distracted to even notice that Ryan was talking. “Look.” He nods at the phone, where the screen has lit up with the words _PRIVATE NUMBER_ and the table vibrates quietly. “Answer it.” Ryan prompts.

I reach for the phone uneasily, hesitating for a second before deciding to suck it up and answering, pressing the cool metal close to my ear.

“Hello?” I ask. Ryan watches me with a swarm of worry and intrigue in those big, stupid baby blue eyes of his and I bite my lip, wishing for the first time in weeks that he was anywhere else but sitting with me.

“Ray?”

My heart stops.

“ _Tina?_ ”

“Finally!” She laughs, and the familiarity of her voice pours through me like warm honey. Tina. She was my best friend only a few short years ago. Then, things turned into more. I loved her- once upon a time, but then, where did Ryan fit into all that? I still can’t remember.

“I’ve been calling you for weeks but you never fucking answer!”

“Oh my God” I sigh, but I can’t hide the worry from my face at what she could possibly want from me after silence for so long. “I’m sorry, I’ve been…” my eyes flit up to Ryan’s face and my expression melts at how fucking _happy_ and _relieved_ he looks- sitting across from me as I talk to my ex like nothing in the world could be purer.

And then I remember something else.

“Where are you?” Tina asks. I smile.

“I’m with Ryan.” I reach out, taking his hand into mine softly. “We’re on a _date_.”

“Michael told me you’d been remembering things.” She says. She knows then- whatever went down, however things ended between us- she knows. Someone let her know. “I’m so happy- but I was really worried about you for a few months there.”

“Worried, about me?” I scoff, and Ryan laughs softly, squeezing my hand. “Please. I’m fine.”

“Sure thing Ray,” she replies, like she doesn’t believe me for a single second. I’d forgotten, but now I remember- that Tina knew me too. For a few years- Tina knew me better than anyone in my entire life and I loved her with everything that I had.

But I was no good for her, with my illegal hobbies and my dangerous habits, but she loved me anyway. She cared, and when she had to move on I supported her. Through the entirety of Ryan and I, she had always been there in the background over Xbox Live or skype or a phone-call. She was the one I’d turn to when Ryan and I had the rare fights and disagreements rather than Gavin or Michael or anyone else close to home. I had the accident- and I forgot every single time she had been there for me since she had dumped me to better herself.

Maybe that’s why her number was private. Maybe I’d not even had the privilege of saving it in my phone.

“I’m allowed to be worried.” She tells me. “Out on your own in the big city. We should hang out soon.”

“Yeah.” I reply, and for once, I really do mean it. Ryan’s eyes sparkle as they watch me speak on the phone and I can do nothing but hold stare and beam right back at him. “Yeah,” I repeat. “We really should.”

 

 

_-fin-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over! Thank you to everyone who stuck with, read, and showed their support for this story. Please, let me know in the comments what you thought!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you liked it! Leave a comment, drop some kudos etc etc. Hit me up on tumblr- papersk1n.tumblr.com and share with your friends?! Updates on Saturday's :)


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